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# 



ILIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 
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,hap. 



# $> 

| UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. | 



Tifft, 







NATTY, A SPIRIT: 



HIS PORTRAIT AND HIS LIFE. 



ALLEN PUTNAM. 






" There are more guests at table than the hosts 
Invited." II. W. Longfellow. 



BOSTON: 

BELA MARSH, 15, FRANKLIN STREET. 
NEW YORK: 

PARTRIDGE AND BRITTAN, 342, BROADWAY. 

1856. 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1.8-56, by 

ALLEN PUTNAM, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts. 



PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 
22, School Street. 



DEDICATION. 



• MYRIADS OF BEINGS WALK THE EARTH UNSEEN, BOTE WHEN WE 
WAKE AND WHEN WE SLEEP." 



TO THOSE IN THAT SLEEPLESS HOST WHO GUARD US BY 

NIGHT AND BY DAY, AND WHOSE CHARGE IT IS 

TO BEAR US UP, LEST WE DASH OUR 

FEET AGAINST STONES, 

2To our CSuatoiau ^ntjels, 

WE MAKE THIS NEW YEAR'S PRESENT. 

ALLEN PUTNAM. 
Roxbury, Jan. 1, 1856. 



PREFACE. 



Eater of letters! — this little loaf, which you 
now pick up from off the ocean of literature, is 
not exactly common bread. In looks and flavor 
both, it may be somewhat strange ; for flour from 
a new wheat — a wheat but recently imported 
from foreign climes — is freely used in its com- 
position. Taste it, however, without fear ; for the 
baker and many customers have used the same 
kind for months, and find it sweeter and more nu- 
tritious than most old varieties. Help yourself; 
and take no bridescake crum, but a generous 
mouthful, a hearty meal, — the whole loaf; and, 
if you like it, more can be had of the same 
sort. 



CONTENTS. 



PART I. 

Chapter. . Page. 

I. Introduction 1 

II. The Origin of the Picture, and the 

Selection of the Artist . . 8 

III. The Artist's Statement . . .32 

IV. Subsequent Disclosures ... 60 

PART II. 



I. 


Natty' s Earth -Life 


. 75 


II. 


Spirit-Life. — Introductory 


77 


III. 


First and Second Interviews 


. 80 


IV. 


A Digression 


86 


V. 


Play blossoms into Piety 


. 96 


VI. 


Natty' s Prattlings .... 


103 


VII. 


His Doings and Sayings 


. 116 


mi. 


Pat's Testimony 


125 


IX. 


Procuring Medicine 


. 130 


X. 


Spirits in Prison .... 


143 


XI. 


The Child flashes into Manhood 


. 162 




APPENDIX 


173 



PART FIRST. 
THE PORTRAIT. 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 

Mr. C. L. Fenton, artist, No. 4, Howard 
Street, Boston, has recently executed a 
painting, which calls forth these pages. 
The history of the picture, and its possible 
prophecy, not its merits as a work of art, are 
its points of deepest interest. 

Some explanation is due to the artist. 
This work is no fancy-piece of his. The 
leading figures and the colors were mostly 
prescribed. 

Natty, a spirit, and chief subject of the 
picture, himself asked for this painting, and 



2 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

required that "Uncle Charles's favorite 
dog " should be on the canvas. That dog 
is now living at the mansion of my father- 
in-law, where he is respected for his intel- 
ligence, and fondled for his affection. Of 
medium size, long glossy black hair, large 
forehead, and a very fine eye, " Leo " is a 
pet with us all ; and it was a pleasure to 
gratify Natty, if possible, by getting the 
dog's likeness in the picture. 

The taste and judgment of the artist re- 
volted at the thought of attempting to make 
harmony between a black dog and a bright 
spirit. Success was more than he dared 
anticipate. Natty would not let him follow 
his first impulse, which was to make the 
dog a mere film ; nor would he yield to the 
second wish, and let' the pet be brown. 
Nothing but Leo as he is would do ; and 
Leo is black. 

Submission to the decided but playful 
child has been yielded by the artist. Em- 



INTRODUCTION. 6 

barrassments, growing out of this submis- 
sion, have attended every step of his pro- 
gress ; but he has struggled through them 
patiently and manfully, till the work is 
finished in a manner which gives much 
pleasure to those most interested in its 
subject. Good judges of art will doubt- 
less find faults in this work : the artist sees 
them, or some of them ; and yet he leaves 
them there, because his sense of obedience 
to high behests is stronger than his dread 
of criticism. There is always power and a 
charm in that spirit which overcomes, or 
lifts one above, the world. 

This painting obviously fails to harmonize 
with the world's prevailing conceptions of 
spiritual scenes; for no part of it suggests 
"ghosts and airy nothings." Deathly palor 
and the winding-sheet enter into man's con- 
ceptions of those who have passed beyond 
the grave. The world, therefore, will find 
nothing spiritual in our painting. But what 



4 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

of that ? — yes, what of that ? For who 
was it that asked for firm and healthful 
muscle, for rosy cheek and rose-colored 
tunic, in the picture of a spirit-child 1 It 
was spirits : it was, perhaps, the famous 
artists of olden times, whose works have 
commanded the world's admiration for ages, 
— it was "these, whose notions of fitness the 
artist strove to portray upon the canvas. 
Who of us knows whether spirits, as seen 
by spirit-eyes, are not as substantial as man 
is to man ? Do men, or do angels, best 
know the actual appearance of spirits and 
spirit-scenes ? Angels, most surely ; and 
if angels undertake to help man paint, 
who will be ready to say that their concep- 
tions of an angel's expression, complexion, 
and robes are all wrong ? 

This child is but little more than an 
attempted copy of limbs and features and 
robes that have been made to pass before 
the vision of the artist and other mediums. 



INTRODUCTION. O 

The brushes and paints, and the working 
head and hand, belong to earth. It is less 
a painting by spirits than a painting for 
spirits ; they suggesting what was wanted, 
but measurably leaving man to do the work. 
This is no masterpiece, but only the im- 
perfect result of a first experiment. One 
little spirit, Walter Hall, says " he does not 
think much of this picture ; that it does not 
look ne.ir as pretty as Natty himself; but 
that it will do well enough for mortals to 
look at." No doubt the real designers of 
the portrait think the same; and yet they 
may be much rejoiced that they have been 
able to disclose to earth's mourners the 
possibility of getting their departed ones to 
sit for likenesses before some of our clair- 
voyant artists, and thus secure most valuable 
mementoes of those who are gone. Also 
they may rejoice at the thought of being 
able to show somewhat of heaven's scenery 
and heaven's inhabitants to man, and thus 



6 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

teach him that no ghostlike forms or sha- 
dowy scenes will appall or mock him when 
he soars to spirit-homes. " Grave ! where 
is thy victory ? " The spiritual subduing 
the natural, heaven and earth are to blend 
on the canvas, not alone as human artists 
would portray them, but also as heaven's 
painters shall direct. In this view is con- 
tained the possible prophecy of Natty and 
the pet. A new era in the art of painting, 
which shall help the bereaved to obtain 
likenesses of the departed, and sketches of 
scenes amid which the ascended dwell, and 
which shall let the ascended one write his 
messages of love upon man's canvas, and 
portray the scenes of the upper world as 
they appear to him, — such an era may be 
harbingered by the work which prompts my 
pen. This picture is no more than the faint 
glimmer of earliest dawn : the day yet lin- 
gers in the folds of night. 

Mrs. Sisson, Mrs. Newton, Mrs. Leeds, 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

Miss Bugbee, and Miss Burbank, all well- 
known clairvoyant mediums, whose eyes 
are familiar with, the features and form of 
Natty, call the child in the picture an ap- 
proach at least to a likeness of him as he 
appears in his moments of repose, and yet 
as lacking most essentially the heavenly 
brilliancy which mantles his gleeful face in 
all times of action. Such lack must ever 
be, they think, on man's canvas. The dog 
could not be much better. The fllling-up 
of the picture, its scenery and general color- 
ing, — symbolical, perhaps, in all its minu- 
tiae, because birds, waterfalls, trees, flowers, 
fruits, the mirage, and haloes of varied co- 
lors, may all speak in definite language to 
spirit-eyes, — disclose the efforts and skill 
of the artists to drape the incongruity of the 
black material dog with the light ethereal 
child, and to give as soft and pleasing an 
expression as possible to this incongruous 
combination. The success has been more 
than was anticipated. 



NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

CHAPTER II. 



TIIE ORIGIN OF THE PICTURE, AND THE SELEC- 
TION OF THE ARTIST. 

A story now to be told simply and truth- 
fully possesses charms for us, who are fami- 
liar with its minute details ; and we judge 
that it may interest very many others. To 
our eyes, the story seems full of a simple 
beauty that can hardly be the covering of 
harm to any one, and that may envelop 
some tiny seeds of hope, faith, or heavenly 
aspiration, which, sown upon earth's soil, 
shall germinate, and yield a harvest of golden 
grain. 

Therefore, though the facts which brought 
the painting into being are veiled in an at- 
mosphere of pleasing strangeness, which 



THE PICTURE AND THE ARTIST. y 

may make the reader deem tliem products 
from the world of fiction, they are put forth 
as veritable facts. 

At one of my calls upon Miss Fanny 
Bugbee, medium, in the autumn of 1854, 
there were shown to me some drawings, 
executed by her hand, though she denied 
all consciousness of mental action when the 
work was going on. While we were in 
conversation about the merits of the work, 
and the process by which it was produced, 
" Little Natty " displaced her from her 
own organism, and, taking hold of it him- 
self, commenced a playful chat with me. 
Among other things, I said to him, " Who 
moves and guides this medium's hand while 
it forms these flowers ? " — " Ben West," 
he answered. — " Good, Natty, good ! " 
said I ; " for if that famous painter is at 
work here, he can sketch for me your like- 
ness" — "You shall have it, father" was 
his quick rejoinder. 



10 * NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

Afterwards, when he presented himself, 
some playful allusions to his promise were 
made ; but no answer came which led us to 
suppose that he had ever designed a fulfil- 
ment. All through the winter and early- 
spring, this matter was forgotten ; but, 
some time in May, 1855, Mrs. Putnam met 
Mrs. Sisson, of Somerville, at the house of 
a friend in Tremont Place, Boston. Tak- 
ing possession of Mrs. Sisson as medium, 
Natty asked his mother — mother by his 
own adoption — for permission to take the 
medium out to the shops, and spend some 
money. " Spend money, Natty ! " said she ; 
" what can you want of money ? " — "I 
want," he said, — " I want to buy a likeness 
of myself." He pleaded somewhat earnest- 
ly for this permission, and also for more 
discretion as to price than she was ready to 
grant ; but, after some fruitless attempts on 
her part to limit the liability to draft upon 
the family treasury, and a promise on his 



THE PICTURE AND THE ARTIST. 11 

part not to make it very heavy, permission 
was given for him to spend at his discretion. 
Returning home, she made known the lia- 
bility to which we were exposed ; and we 
had a pleasant laugh at the insolvency which 
our new disburser might bring upon us. 
No sleep, however, was lost from any ap- 
prehension of extravagance on Natty's part, 
and no faith was had that he would use his 
privilege. Mrs. Sisson was left entirely 
ignorant of what had been said through 
her, and the matter was a secret in our own 
family. 

About one week after the scene described 
above, I made a call at the same house, in 
Tremont Place, and had been in the parlor 
only a few minutes when the same medium 
from Somerville rang the bell, and entered, 
bringing a roll in her hand. She seemed 
very much pleased at the unexpected meet- 
ing with me there, and accounted for her 
excess of pleasure by saying that Natty 



12 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

had told her the night before that she 
should meet me in Boston that day. She 
also said, that, late on the evening before, 
this little spirit had taken control of her, 
and, through her, had told her husband that 
on the morrow she must go to Boston, and 
buy a picture which he wanted to give to 
his parents. There was a little laugh be- 
tween husband and wife at the strangeness 
of the requisition, and at the trifling of this 
spirit with them. Supposing it but the 
frolic of the moment, they went to their 
night's sleep. Morning came ; and Mrs. 
Sisson told her husband that she must go 
over to Boston and buy the pictures. He 
tried to dissuade her ; saying that it was 
folly, if not wrong, to go and expend money 
on Mr. Putnam's account, with no excuse 
to give for it but that a spirit had asked her 
to do so. i( Mr. Putnam will not like it," 
he said. " He may pay you the money, and 
find no fault; but he cannot be satisfied 



THE PICTURE AND THE ARTIST. lo 

with such doings." " I must buy," she re- 
sponded ; " and, if Mr. Putnam does not 
like it, I will pay for and keep the pictures 
myself." Here her whole air and manner, 
which was that of inquiry, reminded me of 
a fact which I had overlooked, — viz., that, 
when Natty had asked Mrs. Putnam for 
permission to make a purchase, the medium 
was unconscious ; and that she had not 
learned that she already had our permission 
for all that had been done. Under such 
circumstances, no wonder that the husband 
did not like the aspect of the matter, and 
no wonder that she herself bent upon me 
the inquiring gaze. At once I relieved her 
embarrassment by describing what had pre- 
viously occurred. Taking heart from my 
words, she then told how, guided by 
Natty, she had gone from print-shop to 
print-shop, through Hanover, Court, and 
far up Washington Streets, overhauling the 
assortments, getting the salesmen out of 



14 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

patience, and leaving one after another with- 
out seeing any thing like what was wanted. 
At length, wearied by the long tramp and 
almost discouraged, she reached No. 328 of 
the last-named street. There, after examin- 
ing such prints as were opened, she said to 
the man at the counter, " You have more ? " 
" Yes," he said, " we have a fresh package, 
just in from New York, which I will open 
for you/' The cover was removed, and 
the second picture in the box was " Natty 
to the life, and the third was Abby." She 
bought the two, paying for them both one 
dollar sixty-two and a half cents, and brought 
them to where she met me. At a subse- 
quent interview, Natty said he took her all 
around town in order to satisfy her that 
there was no other print in Boston like the 
one she was made to buy. Unrolling her 
parcel, I found colored French lithographs, 
one of them being a beautiful boy, holding 
an orange in the left hand ; the other a 



THE PICTURE AND THE ARTIST. 15 

beautiful female head, emblematic of sum- 
mer, wreathed with flowers, and bearing a 
sheaf of golden grain upon her shoulder. 
The boy, she said, was " the very picture of 
Natty as she had seen him " in her clair- 
voyant state ; the other, she told me, was 
like a female spirit -friend whom she often 
saw around me. This likeness, in the upper 
part of the face, was obvious to myself. 

Learning from her that Natty was present, 
I asked the friend at whose house the inter- 
view occurred for a private room. As soon 
as the medium and myself were alone, Natty 
disposed of her, and entered at once into 
conversation. After stating that he had at 
last fulfilled the promise to furnish his like- 
ness, and declaring that it was truly a like- 
ness, he said to me, very earnestly, — 

" Now, father, I ask one favor : will you 
grant it ? " 

"You know, Natty, that I am chary of 
promises. I must know what you want 
before I answer." 



16 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

" I want these put upon canvas, and 
Uncle Charles's favorite dog in the picture 
with me." 

" I will do it upon one condition." 

"What is that?" 

li That you and Uncle Charles will select 
the artist." 

" Give us time ? " 

" Yes, Natty, as much time as you wish." 

Upon resuming consciousness, the me- 
dium declared ignorance of any part of the 
conversation ; and I kept it from her, and 
from all others outside of my own family. 

This matter of the likeness now became 
intensely interesting. My purpose was firm 
to follow it up, and also to work with all 
possible secrecy and caution. The resolve 
was at once formed that I would not, any- 
where or in any way, reveal my expectation 
that some artist might be named through a 
medium. 

Taking the pictures, I went alone and di- 



THE PICTURE AND THE ARTIST. IT 

rectly from Tremont Place to Mrs. Leeds's, 
in Carver Street. Opening the roll, and 
drawing' her attention to the prints, but 
without the slightest hint that they were 
any thing more than pretty things that had 
caught the eye as I walked the streets, she 
instantly said, " One of them is Natty, and 
the other is like a friend that I have often 
seen around you." Struck forcibly by her 
recognition of them, and incited to a farther 
test, I bent my steps directly to Tyler 
Street ; and, opening my treasure in the 
presence of Mrs. Newton, her eyes sparkled 
in an instant, and she exclaimed, " Why ! 
you have your ' little Natty ' there ! " and, 
seeing the other, she said, "Here is Abby 
too ! " Interest deepened, as a matter of 
course. Three clairvoyant mediums, all on 
the same morning, separately, and without 
the slightest intimation from me or any 
other imaginable source, saw alike. Here 
was evidence that spiritual vision was in 

2 



18 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

harmony with external vision ; that Natty, 
the spirit, presented the same features to 
three different sets of internal eyes, and that 
the outward eyes of all the three recognized 
him in the picture. 

There was also another striking fact. 
My little friend had often been described to 
me as a bright, curly-haired boy, and my 
mind had formed a distinct conception of his 
appearance. To me, his forehead was very 
broad and high, while the lower part of the 
face was narrow ; the whole face was pale, 
and his curling hair hung in long ringlets 
upon his shoulders : such was my mental 
image. But in the lithograph the cheeks 
are plump and rosy, and the hair curls tight 
from its very roots, and does not reach the 
shoulders. There is danger of being for- 
getful on a point like this ; but I have seen 
the danger, and striven to present the exact 
truth. If I have been successful here, 
every one can see that the contrast between 



THE PICTURE AND THE ARTIST. 19 

the Natty in my mind and the Natty on the 
paper was to me proof positive that these 
several mediums were not seeing with my 
eyes, — were not mesmerized by me. 

At evening of the next following day, 
and before my possession of the picture was 
known in the neighborhood, I called upon 
Miss Bugbee, who lives near my home in 
Roxbury. While I was unfolding my 
scroll, the boy being bottom up to her, and 
scarcely more than half the head visible, 
she exclaimed, " Why, Natty ! " and laid 
hold of the picture with all the gleesome 
earnestness of strong affection. She saw, 
too, in the accompanying picture, the same 
likeness that the other mediums had named. 

After the joy and excitement of her re- 
cognition had subsided, Natty took control 
in her organism, and I asked him to explain 
his recent doings. 

" You remember, father, my promise that 
Ben West should sketch me through the 
hand of this medium." 



£0 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

" Yes ; but I thought it mere words." 

"No, not mere words; I meant it; and 
we tried : but we could not get a distinct 
impression on her brain. Then we looked 
about for some one more impressible ; and, 
in the south of France, we found one that 
answered our purpose." 

Here came a vision. The medium said, 
" I see, on the banks of a beautiful river, 
under a large tree, a man, small in stature, 
light complexion, blue eyes, and large fore- 
head. There, stretched at length upon the 
ground, resting upon one elbow, with pencil 
and sketch-book beside him, the spirit of 
Ben West is making .passes over his tem- 
ples ; and Natty hovers above, so that the 
features of Natty may be distinctly daguer- 
• reotyped on the artist's brain." Such was 
the vision. At a later day, Natty told me 
that this was a representation of what had 
occurred about two years before. 

After the vision, Natty resumed : " He 



THE PICTURE AND THE ARTIST. 21 

put me in his sketch-book ; and, when the 
sketch had been lithographed, I superin- 
tended the coloring of this impression, so 
that it might be made to look like me. 
Then, when a e canvasser ' was selecting 
prints for New York, I was by, and made 
him take this one. At New York, I made 
them forward it to Boston ; and, as soon as 
it reached there, I made the medium go 
with me and buy it. There is no other like 
it in the city." 

To test the accuracy of the last assertion, 
I called at the place where the purchase had 
been made, described the " orange-boy," 
ascertained that the seller remembered it, 
and asked if he had more of the same kind. 
"Yes," was his reply ; -and he led me to 
the package last received from New York ; 
and we overhauled it thoroughly, without 
finding what he had no doubt was there. 
He expressed some surprise that but one 
copy had been sent, and remarked that such 



22 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

a thing was unusual. From him I learned 
that the " orange-boy " was not new in the 
market. Two or three months later, I found 
a shop-worn copy of it in Court Street, and 
paid for that the full price of a clean one. 
Upon comparison of the two, there were 
found marked differences in the expression 
of the eyes, and in the general coloring. 
We are not at liberty, therefore, to infer 
that Natty was impressed on the French 
artist's brain subsequent to, and for the pur- 
pose of, fulfilling his promise to me, but that 
he only availed himself of what had pre- 
viously been done in the way of outline, and 
undertook superintendence of coloring and 
transmission, after failing with Miss Bugbee. 
His statements above, however, led me to a 
different inference at first, and will do the 
same to others. 

Within a day or two of the visit to Miss 
Bugbee, we received a call from Miss E. J. 
Brown. When my wife drew her attention 



THE PICTURE AND THE AUTIST. 23 

to the " orange-boy," I watched her face, 
and soon saw it lighted up with a bright 
smile ; and she said, " Natty ! " The fea- 
tures on the other seemed to her quite fa- 
miliar. 

Evidence of likeness — indications that 
we had a copy of Natty's features — had 
now become very strong. More than two 
or three witnesses testified, independently, 
to the same. I was willing that an artist 
should be named, and yet was careful to give 
no hint that such a thing was expected. 

Ten days, more or less, after Natty ob- 
tained my promise to foot the bills, if he 
and Uncle Charles would select the artist, 
Mrs. Sisson sent from Somerville to Hox- 
bury the following words, written in pencil : 
" Mr. Fenton, head of Hanover Street, art- 
ist." A verbal message, at the same time, 
was to this effect : " I do not know what it 
means, nor why it is sent ; neither do I 
know any thing of the man ; but I follow a 



24 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

strong impression." To me, as every reader 
will suppose, it was not only intelligible, 
but intensely gratifying. I knew why it 
came. But the artist, even by name, was a 
stranger to me and to my family. 

When Mr. Fenton's name was furnished, 
Mrs. Putnam, to whom the paper was 
handed, obtained a more full account than 
is given above of the occurrences at Somer- 
ville, on the night when Natty asked for 
help to effect his purchase. As she under- 
stood the account, the facts are, that, Mr. 
and Mrs. Sisson having retired for the 
night, both of them much fatigued by the 
day's labor, some spirit took possession of 
her, and insisted that the husband should 
get out of bed, and write down what should 
be dictated. The husband's fatigue made 
him protest against this with much firmness ; 
and yet the importunity was so earnest and 
persevering, that he at last yielded reluctant- 
ly, got up, struck a light, and pencilled 



THE PICTURE AND THE ARTIST. 25 

down the following, which I copy from the 
original manuscript : — 

" Dear Friend, — I come to you this night to ask 
a favor. My name is Natty. I have come to gratify 
the one I love in earth, — my mother; I come to 
impress the medium to get the paintings representing 
myself and a female spirit, whom I will procure for my 
father ; and as this is the request of one I love, and 
whom I now call mother, tell my father these are to be 
taken on canvas by an artist who shall execute the 
work well. With me shall be taken the favorite pet 
dog of Uncle Charles. After these are completed on 
canvas, give the original prints on paper to the medium 
for gratifying my request. The medium must go to- 
morrow, without fail, so as to have them ready when 
she meets my father. The female spirit represents my 
father's good works. He has sowed the seed, and 
reapers are gathering the grain. The seeds he hath 
sown are called good. This is from your guardian 
spirit, Natty. 

" May 22, 1855." 

Such was the written part of his commu- 
nication that night. Many other things 
were spoken by him in explanation, and in 
the way of urging compliance with his 



26 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

wishes. The Uncle Charles referred to was 
Mr. Charles B., a brother of Mrs. Putnam, 
who passed away from earth about three 
years ago. At times, the female, whose like- 
ness he procured for me, is called by Natty 
his mother in the spheres ; and possibly his 
letter alludes to compliance with the wishes 
of both my present and my former wife. 
Nothing has yet been done in the way of 
arrangements for putting the female upon 
canvas. She has been seen by the artist ; 
but he will wait for further developments 
and promptings before he undertakes to give 
her portrait. 

The question arose, whether to publish 
or to suppress Natty's account of what the 
female represented. It was retained, be- 
cause experience of the influences of Spirit- 
ualism has been sweet ; and there is a hope 
of winning others to taste its manna, by 
exhibiting glimpses as to whence and how 
co-workers with good spirits obtain some 



THE PICTURE AND THE AETIST. 27 

courage, strength, and compensation, which 
the world knows but little of. 

" Mr. Fenton, head of Hanover Street, 
artist," was now to be looked up. The 
" Boston Directory " of last year did not 
embrace the name. An old " Boston Alma- 
nac " did, but located on Court, near Brattle 
Street. An hour's bootless search was made 
for him one morning j and how sublime the 
ludicrous of my position, could the many 
passers of the thronged street have looked 
upon me as I was, — the puzzled agent of a 
spirit ! But they did not see through the 
walls of clay. 

The following day, " C. L. Fenton " was 
found on a sign, at No. 4, Howard Street, 
near the " head of Hanover." Working 
my way up to the fourth story, and into the 
sanctum of a stranger, I asked for Mr. Fen- 
ton. The gentleman present said, "That 
is my name." And now, what could I 
say, what do ? Fancy a gray-haired man 



28 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

acting the messenger of a spirit-boy to a 
mortal artist, bearing a request that that art- 
ist shall portray the impalpable spirit upon 
canvas ! Such was I. Taking the liberty 
to. look at the paintings around the studio, 
and to make a few remarks that meant no- 
thing, I managed soon to edge my way up 
in sight of Spiritualism. Feeling, perhaps, 
that more was meant by me than met his 
ear, Mr. Fenton said, "You may speak 
freely upon that subject ; for, though not ex- 
actly a believer in modern Spiritualism, yet 
I am a semi-Swedenborgian, have at seve- 
ral times been favored with visions, and have 
an interest in spiritual matters." Thus the 
way was cleared. Natty had read his man, 
and had not fooled me. 

The specimens of art in this studio were 
not such as would have highly commended 
this artist to me, as being well suited to 
execute the delicate work I had in view. I 
do not learn that he has achieved much dis- 



THE PICTURE AND THE ARTIST. 29 

tinction. But it was not now my province 
to judge of his fitness for the work. He 
was the man already selected by my em- 
ployer ; and my sole business was to learn 
whether he would accept of his appoint- 
ment. The principal points of the preced- 
ing story were stated by me ; and he readily 
consented to do the best he could to gratify 
Natty. 

His soul has been in this work ; and his 
hand has been more successful here than in 
any previous efforts. Should there be no 
other benefit, it is not a small thing to have 
enkindled in one modest and shrinking 
mind so much new energy and hope and 
joy and aspiration after an excellence in art, 
which shall be useful and elevating to man, 
as have grown up in this retiring artist 
within the last six months. He may, or 
he may not, be eminent, in future years, 
in portraying the lineaments of angels ; he 
may improve, or he may not, as a painter : 



30 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

but, in either case, he will count it a glory 
and a joy that he was the chosen instrument 
in the hands of ascended artists, by which 
they made an early, if not their first, attempt 
to teach the world that individual spirits 
can have their true likenesses put upon 
canvas by human artists. Though his own 
success should not be great, yet his name 
may long be intimately blended with the 
incipient movements of a new and beneficent 
achievement in the art of painting. 

The leading facts in this narrative have 
already been given to the public in the co- 
lumns of the " New-England Spiritualist ; " 
not, however, in connected order. A repro- 
duction of them, in new form, seemed de- 
sirable. What follows will be new. The 
artist has been asked to tell his own story, 
which he does in the next chapter. His 
minute statement will here be given; and, 
though not very intelligible in some parts 
to those who cannot have access to the 



THE PICTURE AND THE ARTIST. 81 

painting, it deserves to go on record, if the 
picture is, in any essential respects, a har- 
binger of the day when our artists shall look 
beyond the veil which hides the spirits of 
loved ones, and record their clear visions 
with the brush. 



32 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 



CHAPTER III. 



THE ARTIST'S STATEMENT. 

Being called on to give a statement of facts, 
as they have occurred to me, connected with 
the picture of Natty, since the time the 
lithograph of what purported and proved to 
be a likeness of Angel Natty was put into 
my hands, I will endeavor to do so ; but, 
as the use and arrangement of words have 
never occupied any portion of my attention, 
I fear my attempt to describe the little items 
or glimpses into the spirit-world, by which 
I have been instructed in the composition, 
and in some degree in color, of the picture, 
will be unsatisfactory. Running, as the 
items do, over more than six months of 
time, without diary or dates, I fear it will 



the artist's statement. 33 

be a congress of items not understood by 
many, or not at all by any but those that 
have experienced the manner in which ob- 
jects in the spirit-world are discerned. But 
I will do my best to explain. 

Some time in the latter half of June (I 
think it was), a stranger called at my room, 
and introduced himself as Mr. Putnam, of 
Roxbury, and showed me a lithograph head 
in colors. I was immediately struck with 
the remarkable intelligence which it ex- 
pressed, or, as I then expressed it, the in- 
nocence of wisdom. After a few remarks 
made by each to the other, we both knew 
that each had perception of the spiritual; 
and he immediately entered on the incidents 
connected with the procuring of the picture 
which he held in his hand, also stating 
that I was selected by the spirit himself to 
put it on canvas ; that " Uncle Charles's 
favorite dog " should be in the picture ; and 
that I was not limited as to means or time, 
3 



34 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

but that I should do as I was impressed ; 
that he had nothing to say as regards the 
picture, farther than that he wished me to 
procure the best materials ; when I wanted 
money, to be so kind as to let him know, at 
the same time proffering some in advance ; 
and then left the room. 

My thoughts immediately pictured Natty 
in the spirit-world ; but the dog, the black 
dog, — how should I dispose of him ? The 
material black dog and the Angel Natty 
both in the spirit-world ! The thought was 
repulsive. My first idea was to make the 
dog a film, a mere shadow. I consulted 
Natty, through his favorite writing instru- 
ment, Mrs. Little ; and his language was 
very emphatic, that the dog was to be no 
more nor less than his Uncle Charles's black 
dog. At the same time, he said, " Give me 
some feet ; and don't make the dog prettier 
than I." 

Shortly after this, but before I had re- 



the artist's statement. 35 

ceived any vision or extra impression, I made 
a small sketch, in colors, of the whole sub- 
ject. 

I must try to describe that sketch, in or- 
der to give an understanding of how much 
I have received from spirit-vision towards 
the finished picture. 

The sketch represents him whole length ; 
the position of the head, body, and lower 
limbs, the same as in the finished picture. 
. The right hand is raised to the height of 
the shoulder, the fore-finger pointing upward, 
and the others grasping the end of some 
drapery which descends to the knees : the 
left hand holds on its palm a small glitter- 
ing globe. The dog reposes on dense clouds, 
his nose turned up so as to bring the back 
of the head towards the spectator. The im- 
mediate foreground shows three bunches of 
grapes : on the right of the figure, two 
bunches, the gold and the blood, the gold 
next to the feet ; on the left, one cluster, the 



36 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

silver : on the right; above the grapes, roses 
in profusion ; on the left, high in the pic- 
ture and in the distance, a temple of large 
proportions, over the pinnacle of which glit- 
ters a golden star, radiating light. From 
near the temple descends water, falling from 
rock to rock, then disappearing, and finally 
gushing up through artificial works. From 
behind the figure commences a broad flight 
of steps, overarched with Hving verdure and 
rainbows of flowers. At the lower edge of 
the canvas spans a segment of a circle, re- 
presenting the world, on which drip the 
juices of the fruit, representing the celestial 
(gold), spiritual (silver), and natural (blood). 
Around, and immediately in contact with, 
the earth, is a clear golden atmosphere, 
above which dense clouds are formed, yet 
below the feet of the child, and, as they 
ascend, gradually become attenuated, until 
all is lost in mist, out of which the whole 
seems to glow. Directly over his head are 



the artist's statement. 37 

streams of brilliant light, in the form of a 
reversed cone, the apex of which rests on 
his head. 

I have described the sketch thus minutely 
that the observer may see how the changes 
were suggested, and thereby know what 
portion of the finished picture I have pro- 
duced without vision. 

Shortly after having made the above- 
described sketch, being in an assembly of a 
hundred or more persons, I was introduced 
to Mrs. Newton, who immediately became 
entranced. A spirit, speaking with her or- 
gans, desired to take my hand, that he might 
establish a communication with me that 
should not be broken. I complied ; and the 
spirit addressed a few words of encourage- 
ment to me, and ended with requesting me, 
on the following day, to eat a light dinner, 
and, soon after, to lie down, and he would 
be with me. Not having ever seen any per- 
son entranced, and all bein°; entire strangers 



38 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

to each other, I did not give that attention 
to the momentary address which I otherwise 
should, and only remembered the last sen- 
tence. At noon, on the following day, I 
complied with the request of my spirit- 
friend ; but, it being washing-day at home, 
I went direct to my little upper room in 
Howard Street (my painting-room), and 
attempted to repose myself on my throne (a 
deal box, three by four feet), with my feet 
in one chair, and the cushion of another for 
a pillow. Bookbinders hammering, print- 
ing-presses going, and two doors slamming 
close to my head, the repose that I was in 
was not very enviable. However, my spirit- 
friend was soon at work. I seemed to be a 
little changed from a natural or wide-awake 
state as to the body, but had all my thought, 
reflection, and comparison, doubly wide- 
awake. It was a repose of nothing but the 
material matter. The senses had slipped 
off, and were in entire freedom, and lost 



the artist's statement. 39 

sight of natural objects. I had been in this 
condition a few minutes, when before my 
face came the lower end of a picture, about 
twelve inches wide. At first, I did not 
think what it was ; but, after looking at it 
steadily a minute or so, I saw the grapes ; 
and these brought to memory the sketch I 
had made for the picture of Natty. But 
here it was enlarged to twenty times the 
size of my sketch ; and the grapes, instead 
of being distributed as in my design, were 
all on one side. The arrangement of colors 
also was changed : the golden, instead of 
being nearest the centre, were farthest from 
it ; the massive dark clouds, that seemed to 
support the whole superstructure in said 
sketch, had disappeared ; and immediately 
the vision was gone. 

After a few moments of vacancy, the 
centre of a canvas (I did not see the edges 
either way) was presented to my view ; and 
on it were sketched, in colors, the body and 



40 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

left arm of a child, together with a dog, 
and the child's arm lay over and around the 
dog's neck. I had been in a quandary as 
to the position of the dog, and had actually 
colored it in three different positions in my 
sketch, and at last left it somewhat unde- 
fined. 

I have strictly followed these suggestions. 
There was an attempt afterwards to produce 
the picture as a whole ; but it was small, 
about the size of my sketch, and so far off that 
I could not define it. Perhaps the distance 
corresponded to the time that was to elapse 
before the painting would be all arranged 
and marked out, which has been over six 
months ; and, lastly, the spirit-artist who 
was operating for my instruction was seen 
by me for a moment, and then my senses 
became entangled with their material over- 
coat. I arose, I must confess, very much 
disappointed ; for I had expected something 
wonderful ; thought the whole picture would 



THE ARTIST'S STATEMENT. 41 

blaze out in all the glow of spirit-life, or 
perhaps dear little Natty would show him- 
self to me in person. All that I had seen 
were but sketches of parts of a picture, 
works of art, not the real reality. This be- 
ing the first time that the spirit-world had 
given me sight of any thing but the things 
themselves, the singularity made a strong 
impression on me. 

Shortly after this, I visited Mrs. Leeds, a 
medium who had been somewhat familiar 
with little Natty. She soon became en- 
tranced ; and the spirit commenced speaking 
to me in these words : " If thee will sit 
nearer the instrument, and take her hand, I 
will speak to thee." And, for a few minutes, 
there was poured forth a flood of burning 
beauty, in the artless simplicity of a child, 
touching all the thoughts and feelings that 
I had passed through during the past five 
years, and soothing my spirit with predic- 
tions of use for the future. He ended by 



4^ NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

saying, after having spoken of the picture 
of the spirit-child which I was to paint, 
" Do not proceed with the work immediate- 
ly, as all the influences are not brought to 
bear yet. Thee shall go over a bridge, or 
bridges, on to high ground ; and there, in 
the twilight of the evening, the whole shall 
pass before thee as a panorama." 

This was in the morning ; and I expected 
the promise would be fulfilled on the even- 
ing of that day, although the spirit said 
nothing about time. At twilight, I disposed 
myself (but not at a window, for the idea of 
seeing the panorama in external nature had 
not entered my thoughts), somewhat expect- 
ing to be blessed with the vision of the whole 
subject; but the evening hours passed away, 
and so did those of the next, the next, and 
the next, and so on for four or five weeks, 
and nothing of the -subject was shown me. 
Hope was almost gone ; and I began to think 
that the promises of some spirits were not 
fulfilled. 



THE ARTIST S STATEMENT. 4q 

I reside near the top of old Bunker Hill, 
in Charlestown. From my front windows, 
where I generally am during twilight, was 
then a broad free opening, taking into view 
many miles in extent of hills. During the 
four or five weeks succeeding the promise 
of the spirit, there had been erected, on the 
vacant lots in front of my dwelling, three - 
houses. The frames were up and boarded, 
which left a small opening between these and 
the next building, — a sort of proscenium 
for the panorama, as I afterwards thought. 

One evening, I was sitting at a window 
which I very seldom sit near, having been 
induced to leave my favorite seat by a sen- 
sation as if small insects were crawling all 
over my body and hands, which I experi- 
enced at that favorite window, and nowhere 
else. Had I remained at that place, I could 
not have seen the opening across which the 
imagery passed. The panorama was not 
thought of at the time, although not forgot- 



44 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

ten. I was watching the motions of the 
beautiful summer vapor, when a particular 
light attracted my attention. I examined it 
closely, and behold, it was the image of Natty ! 
but the dog was not there. All the scenery 
which I had designed and arranged for the 
picture was missing ; and instead were fleecy 
' vapors on his right, amid which I dimly saw 
an opening, indicating a way of ascent. Be- 
low the figure, and on which it stood, were 
dense clouds, thence rolling up more attenu- 
ated, but dark on the left hand of the figure. 
Close to his left side was the darkest, densest 
vapor, over which his arm seemed to rest ; 
but no appearance of the dog. There was 
no color, simply light and shade, or the 
general effect of the whole picture indis- 
tinctly made out. It moved on slowly for 
three or four minutes, when it reached a 
position directly over the eaves of the build- 
ing towards which it was passing (although 
apparently two miles in the distance), when 



the artist's statement. 45 

it became stationary, and gradually dimi- 
nished in size till it wholly disappeared. I 
exclaimed, " I wish I had seen it more 
distinctly ! " when immediately the same ar- 
rangement came in sight in precisely the 
same spot, moved across the same path to 
the same place, and disappeared in the same 
manner, but this time more indistinctly. 
During the whole time it was in sight, I 
distinctly saw an emanation of light from 
the eaves to the ridgepole of the building 
over which the arrangement vanished. The 
third evening after this, I was sitting at 
the same window, sipping in the tidbits 
of a glowing summer's sunset, when my 
attention was attracted to a small black 
cloud, in form like a balloon. It moved 
over the same place as the figure three 
evenings before, disappeared at the same 
spot in the same manner, re-appeared in the 
same way, passed over the same space, 
and gradually disappeared as before. This 



46 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

passing a second time, and disappearing in 
the same singular manner as the imagery, 
led me to surmise there was some connec- 
tion between the two. Here was something 
new in my experience. These were seen 
by the material eyes, absolutely floating in 
earth's atmosphere. 

Time wore on, without any thing more 
being suggested, till August 3, when I 
visited, with Mr. Putnam, Mrs. Little, for 
the purpose of communicating with Natty 
in regard to the picture. Here he repeated, 
" Give me some feet ; " also he said, " Throw 
one arm gracefully over the dog ; put a 
wreath in the hand, ready to be thrown over 
the dog's neck ; let the dog be black ; give 
depth to his eyes almost human ; but don't 
make the dog prettier than I ; dispense with 
scenery in the background. West tells me 
' flowers will not harmonize in the back- 
ground.' I prefer rose-color for dress ; but, if 
mother likes white best, I give up to her taste. 



the artist's statement. 47 

I like your sketch : don't destroy it." I re- 
plied, " I have already/' — thinking of one 
I had that morning rubbed out, the second I 
had made ; the first — the one above described 
— not entering my thoughts at the time, 
nor since with any regard to Natty or the 
picture in progress, until I commenced 
writing out all the little incidents connected 
with the subject. The reader can see why 
he wished it preserved. Natty was asked 
if he was instrumental in producing the 
panorama. "No," was his reply: " it was 
produced by your familiar spirit, and was 
not to be strictly followed. This answer 
brought to memory the black cloud I saw 
pass and repass three days after the figure ; 
and the same seemed explained 

From these written instructions, and the 
glimpses of spirit-vision that had been given 
me, I commenced the picture, and laid in 
the figure and dog ; but as Natty said, 
" Leave out the scenery in the background," 



48 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

what should I substitute ? The ideas 
gleaned from the panorama were not re- 
garded, as Natty said they were not to be 
followed, and it had passed out of my me- 
mory as connected w r ith the picture, and 
never had been associated with it up to the 
time when I was describing it in the present 
writing ; and yet all the general effect of that 
has been worked in without my once think- 
ing of the original. 

The picture did not progress for some 
days, while I was constantly meditating for 
the background, till one day, while passing 
through a small anteroom in my house, 
the room appeared full of soft rolling va- 
pors, of a color approaching the rose. It 
immediately occurred to me that that was 
the color of the light for the general effect 
in the painting. 

A day or two after this, the same light 
and color were presented to my vision 
in the same place. This strengthened my 



the artist's statement. 49 

former impression. But it seems as if the 
spirit was fearful that I would not adopt it ; 
and, for the third time, the same effects of 
color and light surrounded me in the attic 
over my painting-room. I wanted no fur- 
ther suggestion for my background, and 
proceeded to paint it in ; and such it now 
remains. 

The background was painted in solid, and 
all at once, except a few minutes' work tic- 
kling or glittering it ; the figure and dog 
sketched in ; the foliage and waterfall indicat- 
ed ; the ground on which the child and dog 
stand painted, but without objects ; the fruit 
laid in ; and a few brush-marks near the bot- 
tom of the canvas, to denote water. Here the 
work rested for some days ; when one even- 
ing, after retiring to bed, the lower end of 
the same picture that I had seen some days 
before was presented to my vision : but now 
the flowers were added, and reflected below, 
4 



50 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

as were the grapes, and the legs of the figure ; 
but the dog was not seen in reflection. 

On the following day, I proceeded to 
paint in the lower part of the picture, sup- 
posing the reflections were intended to be 
on water. I represented the reversed image 
of every object, including the dark mass of 
the dog, as reflected on water. This dark 
mass of black at the bottom of the picture 
hove the whole composition out of balance, 
and it lost all its airiness. 

It stood in this condition some days, 
when the idea entered my mind, that the 
vision which had been given me (where all 
objects were not reflected) was intended for 
the mirage, or reflection on the atmosphere. 
I erased what I had painted in this part of 
the picture, and have endeavored to depict 
the mirage. 

Daring the progress of the work, Mrs. 
Little ( Natty 's favorite writing instrument) 
called at my room ; and Natty seized her 






THE ARTIST'S STATEMENT. 51 

hand, and wrote, " That's me in my bower. 
I have a dress like that. I impressed you 
to make it so." Although the dress was 
not finished at that time, I have carried out 
all the ideas I had then indicated. 

Time and paint had enabled me to bring 
the work nearly to the condition in which it 
now is. Some dispute having arisen about 
the size of the legs, and in particular the 
joints of the feet, I was induced to examine 
the works of various artists at the Athe- 
naeum for authority. I was returning, con- 
vinced that I was nearer right than my 
critics, when, turning the key in the door 
of my painting-room, my inner sight was 
opened, and before me, on a virgin canvas, 
without ground or background, was the left 
leg of a child, in the position of the one in 
my picture ; but the calf of the leg was 
fuller and lower, the instep higher, and the 
entire length of the foot a little less, while 
the whole had more reddish-brown in its 



52 



NATTY, A SPIRIT. 



color. I have tried to work mine to corre- 
spond to that. 

Thus had the picture been worked out in 
all its parts up to the 8th of November, 
and I considered it about done. On the 
evening of that day, I went to bed later 
than usual. As soon as I had laid down, I 
became very wakeful. I could not sleep. 
I got out of bed, went to the window, 
rubbed myself all over, and then lay down 
again ; but no sleep followed. About mid- 
night, a light seemed to melt gradually out 
of the darkness of the room, till within it 
I could discern grain in the ear ; then hair 
of a golden hue, with faint appearance of a 
face, neck, and shoulders of a female, when 
I recognized the general features of the 

portrait of Mrs. P (a spirit) ; but the 

whole was dimly seen. In a few seconds, 
a little cherub-child appeared in front, the 
back towards me. The top of his head came 
in sight first, and he seemed to be climbing 



the artist's statement. 53 

from her lap till his breast met hers, when 
he tossed his beautiful dimpled arms around 
her neck with the most touchiug affection. 
I recognized him at once as Natty. The 
back of the head was towards me ; and I was 
impressed with wonder at the remarkable 
fulness in every region, more so than I was 
led to expect from the appearance of the 
front as seen in the lithograph. The hair 
was a little more free than in the print, and 
more golden than I had represented it in 
my painting. The child disappeared for a 
moment, and then came back over the left 

shoulder of Mrs. P , put his breast on 

hers as before, while his body seemed to float 
in the atmosphere horizontally, his back 
being towards me as at first. As soon as he 
reached this position, he turned his head 
back till his eyes met mine, and, with a 
bewitching expression of arch innocence, 
disappeared. 

In the second view of him, my attention 



54 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

was attracted to the arms : they hung down 
freely from and over the breast of the female, 
and seemed the centre of light, as the hair 
and arms had in the first view. I saw at 
once that the arm which I had drawn and 
painted in the picture was not like these. 
Mine was too full below the elbow, — not full 
enough at the wrist ; and at the wrist was 
a deep crease, which I had not indicated in 
the least. I have since made alterations to 
meet these true forms. 

The jewel-clasp on his shoulder was 
shown me in vision. Oh, how beautiful it 
was ! It seemed a living object. Each 
precious stone in it seemed of the finest 
particles, and each particle in motion, and 
the whole setting radiating the most bril- 
liant light, which seemed to flash and spar- 
kle as if given off from an ever-emanating 
source. Indeed, it was the most gorgeous 
object that I ever beheld. Reader, do not 
look at my attempt to imitate that, after 
reading this. 



the artist's statement. 55 

The wreath was shown me one very dark 
night, while sitting at that window gazing 
on vacancy. It appeared suspended directly 
over the spot where the image or panorama 
of Natty first made its appearance. It had 
no leaves, but flowers of the most intense 
blue. There were no minutiae, but simply 
the general. This gave me license to in- 
troduce what small parts I saw fit. I have 
improved that liberty, and have attempted, 
in the wreath, somewhat of the language of 
flowers. Lily-of-the-valley, — return of hap- 
piness ; blue-bell, — constancy ; myrtle, — 
love in absence ; with some odylized flowers. 

Time continued to slip by his days and 
weeks, and I considered the picture finished ; 
but Natty continued to say, " No, it is 
not; I have an important chapter to make 
known when Mrs. Newton returns from 
Europe." But still I considered it done. 
Thus it stood still till January 7, on which 
day Mrs. Newton called at my room, 



56 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

and saw the picture for the first time. She 
soon became entranced. Natty became pre- 
sent as the picture ; but to it was added a 
white dove and white lily. In a vision which 
had been given me of this part of the work, 
months before, I had noticed some object, 
very white and bright, but could not make 
out the form or individuality of it. 

These are the principal items, glimpses, 
written instructions, and verbal information, 
from which I have composed and worked 
out this somewhat singular picture. 

The painting is on canvas, thirty-eight by 
forty-eight inches. Natty is represented as a 
child, his size as that of one between two and 
three years old ; but the head is very fully 
developed, and the expression of the face 
and position of the whole body are indicative 
of more wisdom than belongs to childhood. 
At his left side is Uncle Charles's favorite 
black dog Leo, slightly inclined against 



the artist's statement. 57 

Natty, as Natty is against the dog, each 
contributing to the repose of the other. 
The left arm of Natty rests with perfect 
repose over the neck of the dog, the hand 
being seen on the breast, holding one end 
of a wreath of flowers ; while the other 
end is supported by his right hand, which 
is raised nearly to his waist. The under- 
garment of Natty, of which a small portion 
is seen, is rose-color, bordered with blue, 
from which emanates slightly a faint light, 
— odyle, if you please. The outer-gar- 
ment, which is full and flowing, is white 
(illumined in the shadows with rosy pearl), 
and bordered with gold, from which is sus- 
pended a row of drop-pearls. On the right 
shoulder, this garment, and the drapery 
which forms the covering for the arm, are 
united by a gem-star radiating light. His 
breast, left shoulder, legs below the knees, 
and feet, are bare. Surrounding the figure, 
from the hips upwards, is an emanation 



58 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

of white light. His hair is golden. The 
figures stand on greensward bordered with 
flowers. On Natty's right ascend vines, sup- 
porting grapes, — the golden, the crimson, 
and the silver. Still farther back, and on the 
left, in the middle-ground, is falling water, 
backed by foliage, amid which are seen 
other falls. On the right of Natty, be- 
tween him and the vines, is slightly indi- 
cated, by steps of a golden hue, a way of 
ascent, which is lost in fleecy vapor of a rosy, 
amber color, deepening into dark on the left 
of the head of Natty, and, there, is united 
by light, with a broad, simple wash of deli- 
cate rose-hue, which forms the upper corner 
of the picture on his left. The opposite 
corner, on the right, is of azure. The lower 
end of the painting, below the objects, repre- 
sents the natural atmosphere, on which many 
of the objects are seen reflected, and is a 
deep blue. The composition is egg-form, 
with the small end up ; and on the upper 



the artist's statement. 59 

end can be seen the indication of the shell. 
The shell, as such, was unintentional in me, 
being put there without authority, and in- 
tended for another purpose. That it is an 
eggshell was a subsequent observation ; yet 
it has not been touched since the first paint- 
ing. All the objects in the picture seem to 
be enclosed in the egg, and that seems to be 
floating in the atmosphere. 

Charles L. Fenton. 
Jan. 22, 1856. 



60 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 



CHAPTER IV. 



SUBSEQUENT DISCLOSURES. 

Late in October, 1855, Mrs. Leeds, Mrs. 
Little (formerly Miss Ellis), Miss Burbank, 
and Miss Bugbee, with three or four others, 
met us at the artist's room. The picture was 
then thought to be nearly finished ; and we 
met to criticize and suggest. While the 
others were busily talking and comparing 
impressions and opinions about the work 
before us, Miss Burbank was dumb ; but, as 
soon as we formed a circle and became quiet, 
she was impressed. Then, rising quietly 
and modestly from her seat, she was the 
instrument of a polished, simple, chaste ad- 
dress upon art and its influences. In soft 
and feeling tones, and in a smoothness of 



SUBSEQUENT DISCLOSURES. 61 

style that would not mar the pages of Irving, 
the speaker, touching upon and comparing 
the influences of poetry, music, and paint- 
ing, melted the hearts and enchained , the 
thoughts of us all for fifteen or twenty 
minutes. After the obvious point of the 
address — viz., the softening influences of 
painting — had been beautifully stated, there 
came melting thanks to the artist for his 
patient toil, in behalf of " a circle of de- 
parted artists and lovers of the beautiful ; " 
and not thanks alone, but seeds of hope that 
future and lasting joy would well up within 
him, because of his obedient and faithful 
course in this dawning hour of new tri- 
umphs in the art of painting. 

An impressive and holy tone flowed over 
the little band, making us all feel that it was 
good for us to be there, and giving, for the 
time, a feeling that that upper room was 
then a tabernacle for pure and holy spirits. 
Not the artist alone, but all spirits and mor- 



6:2 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

tals who had been used in procuring this 
picture, came in for a share of thanks and 
for blessings. Little Natty was distinctly, 
yet delicately and touchingly, commended 
for his playful, but adroit and persevering, 
labors in behalf of the ancient artists, — the . 
true projectors of the work. Here — and 
now for the first time — were we told that 
Raphael, Michael Angelo, and Ben West, 
with other kindred spirits, had "for years " 
been wishing and striving to get their pre- 
sent conceptions of the beautiful on to man's 
canvas ; had been wishing to have their 
present influences upon the world's arts 
recognized by man. And now, first, did 
they tell us that our little Natty was their 
co-worker, and that in all his winning ways 
and childish fascinations, by which he had 
won our love and made us willing to incur 
expense for his gratification, he had been 
but the willing, cheerful, untiring agent of 
the painter-angels. It has been no unwel- 



SUBSEQUENT DISCLOSURES. 68 

come thing for us to learn, that, in requital 
of such services, Rubens has taken for him 
the likenesses of those the child loves most 
on earth, and that clairvoyants see those- 
familiar earth-faces, adorned with haloes, 
garnishing the walls of Natty's exquisite 
bower in the bright spheres. 

How far there is explanation now of the 
only point of conflict in the second chapter, 
each reader may judge.' It was in the sum- 
mer or autumn of 1854 that the likeness was 
was first promised me. The promise seemed 
to come in compliance with my request; and 
yet the "orange-boy" — the lithograph by 
Dollet, from Jules Laure, an impression of 
which reached us so strangely — came into 
the market, we are told, two or three years 
ago. It was not, therefore, in fulfilment of 
the promise to me that Ben West, as in 
the vision of Miss Bugbee, daguerreotyped 
Natty on the artist's brain. And can it be, 
that, prior to that promise, the artists above, 



64 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

in furtherance of their design to make them- 
selves once more recognized workers in 
earth's studios, had made the hand of Laure 
sketch unconsciously the head of an existing 
spirit, then hovering immediately over his ac- 
tive brain ? "When questions point to possi- 
bilities in spirit-land, we feel no competency 
to make answers ; yet, if the inquiry can get 
an affirmative answer, Natty's prompt and 
unqualified promise of his likeness the in- 
stant it was asked for, as also the age of the 
lithograph, come into harmony with truth- 
fulness. Complete darkness hung over this 
point till the picture was nearly finished, 
when the unseen artists told us that Natty 
had been their assistant, "for years " .in 
arranging for the present results. A sha- 
dowy explanation may be admissible where 
shadows are chief actors. 

Our picture is not, in any proper sense, 
the work of spirits, for the execution is by 
our artist ; yet he may have been so far 



SUBSEQUENT DISCLOSURES. 65 

-controlled as to show traces in trie different 
parts of the peculiarities of several of those 
departed artists who exhibited to him the 
models, and infused their influences. We 
doubt whether the world is ready to see any 
thing of Ben "West in the child's figure, of 
Raphael in the halo around the boy, or of 
Michael Angelo in the bolder and darker 
parts of the picture. There is no pretence 
or suspicion that those painters handled the 
brush; and, if their distinguishing concep- 
tions were impressed upon Mr. Fenton, he 
may have failed to give them such embodi- 
ment as to make any observer detect resem- 
blances of their peculiar styles. Yet they 
tell us that they have been much with him, 
bringing to bear such limited power as they 
could. That power may grow, does grow ; 
and the imperfections of this first attempt 
through him may be gradually surmounted 
in their future efforts. Opportunities will 
5 



bb NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

now come without effort. Abby shows her- 
self to the artist now ; and so do others. 

Already one bereaved lady has" asked for 
a portrait of her deceased husband ; and the 
spirit of that husband has been seen by the 
artist in different costumes. This spirit has 
expressed a wish that choice of costume 
should be made by the survivors ; also that 
his face shall be as in life, so as to be recog- 
nised by friends, but that the robes shall 
be suggestive of his present condition. 
Others are ready to give employment to the 
artist in the same line, provided the spirits 
are able and willing to show their forms and 
features. When more practice has been had 
in this line, and facility of execution under 
these circumstances been acquired, this art- 
ist, and others, may be able to furnish more 
finished pictures. The one already executed 
will be hung upon the wall of our parlor, 
138, Eustis Street, Roxbury ; where all will 
be welcome who desire to see it. 



SUBSEQUENT DISCLOSURES. 67 

The persistence of the boy in requiring 
the dog may have been much more than a 
childish whim. Within a few days, the 
distinguished naturalist, Audubon, has said 
that there is a spirit-emanation from every 
animal, which ascends, and is immortal, and 
that spiritualized animals surround the spi- 
rits of those who love the animal creation ; 
that birds and beasts are caged by love ; and 
that the naturalist may pursue his studies 
under better circumstances above than on 
earth. No picture of spirit-scenery would 
be satisfactory to such as Audubon, unless 
it presented the contents of Peter's sheet, 
and taught that no living thing is common 
or unclean. All are cleansed by God ; and 
man's highest purity need fear no pollution. 
Referring specifically to this painting, the 
great naturalist found it conforming to na- 
ture, in its blending the earthy and the spirit- 
ual ; also man and the brute. If the purpose 
of the real authors of the picture is cor- 



68 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

rectly seen, they were willing to shock our 
notions, and show us heaven as it looks to 
them, and not as we fancy it, — show it as 
only earth-refined, and yet as substantial to 
their eyes as rocks and trees and dogs and 
human flesh and bones are to ours. 

Men little skilled in art and in natural 
history — men and women "unknown to 
fame " — are the selected agents. And why ? 
Because, says Audubon, " can you teach the 
theologian theology 1" 

We are credulous ; we do believe ; and 
we thank God that we can be and do thus. 
We shall be arraigned ; and yet the world 
is not a bad one. Men do not generally 
criticize and carp and ridicule because of 
festering malice. Such things are with them 
the play of the brain, rather than the work 
of the heart. Such sport tends to keep the 
world in order. Sometimes, indeed, a poor 
frog perishes, and others learn to hide in 
their native element : but the urchins gain 



SUBSEQUENT DISCLOSURES. 69 

strength from exercise ; and, though they do 
debar God's creatures from full enjoyment 
of his sunlight and from free hoppings upon 
his footstool, they do it with no unkind 
intent. Effects may seem bad ; the instru- 
ments of order may and do become some- 
times enslaving chains, do inspire awe, do 
dwarf the growth of freedom, do make a 
man more the slave of society, and less the 
free child of God, than is apparently for his 
highest good ; and yet who knows even 
this ? There is broader and deeper truth in 
the poet's declaration, " Whatever is, is 
right" than we are apt to comprehend. 
God's presence and power are in the cen- 
sor's brain as much as in the most confiding 
heart. Beyond limits which he prescribes, 
no erratic comet can rove, no tornado spread 
desolation. The comet shall come back to 
its starting-point, the tornado shall hush it- 
self to gentle breezes. Among men, as 
among the stars and the elements, God says, 



70 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

" Hitherto, but no further." We work by 
his permission ; critics and readers will do 
the same ; and from the evil, be it on the 
one side or on the other, he will in time 
educe some good. Should these pages be 
no more than a monument to our delusion 
and weak credulity, perchance the inscrip- 
tion we here make may guide some future 
wanderers in safer paths. But if we mark 
the spot where angels came, and lead men 
thither to gaze at the bright-robed visitants, 
and to listen to their words of wisdom and 
of cheer, then our records, though foolish, 
may be as potent for good as the wisdom of 
the wise 

We meant to have published before the 
holidays ; but our unseen advisers said no, 
and added, that, when Mrs. Newton should 
return from Europe, there was more work 
to be done on the picture, and a few more 
statements to be furnished. That lady has 
now come back, and finds in the picture no 



SUBSEQUENT DISCLOSURES. 71 

bird, no white dove, the constant attendant 
and the signal of Natty; neither does she 
find that emblem of purity, the white lily. 
These must go on, and a few changes be 
made. 

On the night of the old year, through this 
lady, Natty gave permission to publish now 
what has come, and stated that we may do 
as we shall judge best with what will be 
disclosed hereafter. " One thing more," he 
says, " I must state, in reference to that pic- 
ture, now. Its true significance you have 
not yet seen. I have insisted on having the 
dog, you know, and also upon having Natty 
as a child. The dog is a representative of 
man's animal passions. The child represents 
man redeemed : ' of such is the kingdom of 
heaven.' The dog in the picture, with his 
subdued look, standing with patient neck 
under the arm of the child, represents the 
animal passions curbed and in subjection. 
The child there speaks of innocence, purity, 



72 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

cheerfulness, and confiding faith, as sub- 
duing the animal, and giving heavenly mas- 
tery to the spiritual. This child should be 
born in each one. In some persons, we see 
scarce any thing but the dog ; in others, the 
child is partly formed, and in others more 
fully shaped. This child must be born in 
the medium before she can see it elsewhere, 
must be in the artist before he can paint it, 
and in each one before it can be seen on the 
canvas in its beauty and power. Oh ! there 
is much to tell you ; but I must do it when 
the medium is stronger." 

Such were his last words in the old year. 
Here first came out the reason why he had 
asked and required a dog, and that a black 
one, — a reason why he was painted as a 
child. Black dog, to image forth animal 
passions ; a child, to show these passions 
curbed by that spirit which fits for the king- 
dom of heaven. The ascendency of the 
childlike spiritual over the animal in man ; 



SUBSEQUENT DISCLOSURES. 7o 

human redemption from the power of animal 
lusts ; human redemption from all the harsh- 
er passions ; the enthronement of childhood, 
and therefore of heaven, within the soul, — 
is the sermon of this picture. We thought 
we were simply playing with the playful 
child ; and he makes the play preach over 
again one of the sweetest lessons that fell 
from the lips of Jesus. 



PART SECOND. 



CHAPTER I. 



NATTY'S EARTH-LIFE. 

Nathaniel Young was born and died. 
This is nearly the whole story. 

The off-hand statement from his own flip- 
pant use of the medium's pencil gives him 
five days of life, and that about thirty-nine 
or forty years ago. Here ends his auto-bio- 
graphy. He claims no knowledge, and little 
accuracy as to dates or spaces of time, con- 
nected with his life here. 

Mr. Timothy Young and wife, an aged 
couple in Chelsea, Mass., have just been 
seen ; and they speak of being present at 



76 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

the death and burial of a nephew, Natha- 
niel, son of Nathaniel and Elizabeth Young, 
who was born and died at Dover, N.H. 
This child lived, as they think, a few weeks 
in the autumn of 1815. My informants are 
the parents of Oliver Young, now in Cali- 
fornia, who is mentioned in the following 
pages, and in whose presence our acquaint- 
ance with Natty commenced. At the first 
interview, Natty claimed to be brother of 
Oliver ; but the information from the other 
source makes him cousin, though cousin of 
peculiar nearness, because Oliver spent six 
years or more in his uncle Nathaniel's fa- 
mily, where he was treated as son and bro- 
ther by Natty's parents, brothers, and sisters. 
Neither he nor any of his relatives were ever 
known to us till he came as a spirit in 
1852 ; and Oliver alone among them was 
seen by us, and he only once, until January, 
1856. No more can be said of his earth- 
life. 



SPIRIT-LIFE. 77 



•CHAPTER II. 



SPIRIT-LIFE. — INTRODUCTORY. 

Ours is a strange work, — the biography of 
a spirit ! Who can write it ? What more 
can it be than moonshine ? Perhaps it will 
be no more, perhaps it will be even less, 
than moonshine ; for moonbeams are reali- 
ties, which sometimes gladden the heart, 
invite the eye to rest upon the orb from 
whence they come, and lift the thoughts to 
Him whose brightness makes the light of 
every natural ray. Shrubs or flowers 
brought from spirit-gardens will have grown 
within the domains of Nature's God. Such, 
however new, will yet be natural; and if 
perchance they have verily the look and 
smell of earth, they may, for that very rea- 



<0 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

son, be all the better suited to refresh and 
gratify mortals. 

Glimpses of an ethereal visitant ; words 
from lips thinner than air; smiles from a 
face rarer than a sunbeam ; movements of a 
form more airy than morning mist ; the life 
of a cherub, who adopts us as father and 
mother ; the life of a gleesome spirit, whose 
constant worship of the heavenly Father, 
whose deep rills of wisdom, and whose 
ever-flowing streams of love and charity, 
often robe themselves in mirth, frolic, and 
dance, — these things are not easy for the 
pen to catch and portray : yet, if caught and 
dressed, they may give heart-food, bread of 
life, to some souls that grow lean at the 
tables which common theology and science 
and literature are wont to spread. 

Whether these stranger-visitants, these 
new facts, are pilgrim fathers, before whom 
the aborigines within the reader will dwindle 
and retire; or whether, landing, like Cook, 



SPIRIT-LIFE. 79 

upon strange shores, they are to be, like him, 
the victims of ignorance and superstition, — 
time will tell. They go forth in no hostile 
spirit : yet they do seek and demand a home 
on earth; and their smiles, their benefi- 
cence, their truthfulness and power, should 
some day win for them a welcome and 
peaceful abode in the hearts of men. 

Proofs of spiritualism, that is, of the fact 
that departed spirits do communicate with 
man, belong to other works. To us, that 
fact has been proved beyond a question, and 
will be assumed in the following pages. 
The purpose here is to exhibit, truthfully, a 
few of the sayings and doings of one, and he 
apparently a little one, of our ethereal visi- 
tants ; also to weave into the web of narra- 
tive a few threads from the many skeins of 
thought and feeling which he has wound 
upon our reels. 



80 N^TTY, A SPIRIT. 



CHAPTER III. 



FIRST AND SECOND INTERVIEWS. 

" Spirit-works, — real, but not miraculous," 
is the title of a lecture published by me 
about two years ago. In that work, I said, 
" Entering a medium's room one morning 
in early autumn of 1852, I saw a gentle- 
manly, intelligent man, apparently about 
thirty, sitting at the table, and putting ques- 
tions. Soon a tiny rap was heard, and the 
name Natty was spelled out. ' Who are 
you ? ' said the man. ' I am your brother,'' 
was the answer. * No,' said the man : i I 
had no such brother.' ' You had,' said the 
rapper. ' No,' said the man. ' Yes,' said 
the other. ' Well, let us see,' added the man. 
e How old was you, Natty, when you died ? ' 






FIRST AND SECOND INTERVIEWS. 81 

' Five clays,' was the answer. i How 
long since you died?' ( Thirty-five years.' 
The gentleman here bit his lip in thought, 
and said, c I believe there was an infant • 
brother who died before I was born ; but I 
thought they called him Oliver.' < No,' 
was the response : ' they called him Natty ; 
and I am he.' c Natty,' said the man, 
1 how do you know that I am your brother ? ' 
f By love,' he answered. ' By love ? ' said 
the questioner. e But don't you love others, 
as well as relatives ? ' Ans. c We like 
others, and love relatives.' c What,' it was 
then asked, — ' what is the difference between 
love and like ? ' The word ' LOYE ' was 
immediately written in large letters, two or 
three inches long, and ' like ' was traced 
under it in very small letters. ' Natty,' con- 
tinued the man, f you are not my brother, 
but are some one else attempting to impose 
upon me.' e I am your brother,' was the 
earnest rejoinder. ( Then will you tell me 
6 



82 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

what sphere you are in ? ' * The fourth,' he 
said. ' The fourth, ah ? Now I've caught 
you ; for, as you died in infancy, you was 
fitted for the seventh sphere when you left 
the earth.' i I have been there,' was the 
response. ' Have been there, and yet are 
now in the fourth ? How is that ? Are you 
moving backwards, — coming down ? ' e No : 
I am an adviser in the fourth.' ' Adviser ! 
What is that ? a sort of superintendent ? ' 
' Yes.' 'Oh! you are in office, then?' 
' Yes.' ' Do you get any pay ? We pay 
well for such things here.' 'Yes, I get 
pay.' ' What pay ? ' ' The pleasure of see- 
ing those under me progress.' I then said 
to the gentleman stranger, e Sir, you have 
found your match, if not your brother : I 
think I would own the relationship.' And, 
in continuance, I remarked that this seemed 
to be a very bright, cheerful spirit ; when 
there was written, ( I am always laughing.' 
My next remark was, ' Natty, I should like 



FIRST AND SECOND INTERVIEWS. OO 

to make your acquaintance.' f Hand out 
your card/ was the instant response. Find- 
ing no card in my pocket, I wrote, secretly, 
on a slip of paper, ( Mr. Allen Putnam, Eus- 
tis Street, Roxbury,' turned the paper over, 
placing the writing down upon the table, 
kept my hand over the paper, and asked 
Natty to make a copy. Instantly the me- 
dium's hand wrote, ( Mr. A. P., U. St., Rox.' 
The writing on my paper had been seen by 
me alone ; and I was looking for a copy in 
full, yet received only abbreviations, Eustis 
being reduced to the simple letter U." 

Here closed my first interview with him. 
Of course, my knowledge of his existence 
dates back only about three years. The 
name of the gentleman then present was 
Oliver Young. 

The occurrences related above were plea- 
sant, and for a time led to many speculations 
and conjectures about the condition, occupa- 
tions, education, attractions, &c, of those 



84 NATTY, A STIRIT. 

who left this life in very early infancy. But 
when a few weeks had passed, and other 
marvels were claiming attention, these scenes 
became nearly, if not quite, forgotten. Yet 
in February, 1853, Miss Ellis's hand, as 
soon as a seat was taken by me at her table, 
wrote, "Mr. A. P., U. St., Rox., I have 
used your card." " How ? " I asked. Ans. 
" By showing it to Moses and Job, who will 
fight that old Chinaman, and come right in 
and take a chair." "Is Job a fighter ?" 
said I. " Yes," said he, " a sort of one : 
ha ! ha ! ha ! " " Will you describe that 
old Chinaman, Natty ? " " Yes : in the first 
place, he has on his perhaps holy head a 
monstrous brass crown ; in his venerable 
ears and nose, large hoops, made in the year 
one ; a great long gown covers his valuable 
suit beneath ; his moccasons turn up in 
utter contempt ; and he handles a long pole, 
with which he keeps me off: but I am going 
to tickle his toes." 



FIRST AND SECOND INTERVIEWS. 85 

Such was the second interview; and, 
though mirth-provoking, it promised little 
in the way of awakening any abiding interest 
in Natty. He seemed but a lively play- 
thing. 



86 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 



CHAPTER IV. 






A DIGRESSION. 

Mention of the " old Chinaman " induces a 
digression. In August, 1852, Miss Hoyt, 
now Mrs. Coan, came by invitation to my 
own dwelling, to sit as medium. This was 
the first effort to get manifestations at that 
place. Miss Hoyt, though a good medium 
both then and now, failed on that occasion 
entirely : not a rap, or response of any kind, 
was elicited. 

One or two weeks later, Miss Ellis was 
invited out ; but her success was next to 
nothing. Naturally, therefore, the questions 
occurred, whether the mediums ever did 
any thing more than practise tricks, and 



A DIGRESSION. bi 

whether the scrutiny was not too close for 
them in my parlor. 

The matter was puzzling. Rumor soon 
told me that each of those mediums had 
come to my house under protest from their 
guardian spirits, and were forewarned of 
failure. Such statements only excited curi- 
osity. To gratify that, I went to Miss El- 
lis's own room, where I seemed to be met 
by a remote ancestor. In the course of con- 
versation, I said to him, "Are certain locali- 
ties more favorable than others for these 
communings ? " " Yes," was the answer. 
" Is it more difficult," I inquired, " to com- 
municate out at my house than it is here ? " 
"Yes," was his answer. "Because that 
house is more damp than this ? " I asked. 
"Partly that," said he. "What other 
cause ? " said I. " Do you wish to know ? " 
he asked, in return ; and there was unusual 
seriousness and earnestness in the tone. 
After thinking a moment, I said yes, and 



88 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

said also, that if there was any thing in my 
character, or that of the members of my 
family, which repelled good spirits, it were 
well to know it, however severe or humiliat- 
ing the lesson might prove. Then he an- 
swered, " There is a bad spirit hovering over 
your house." " Who is he ? " asked I. " An 
old Chinaman," he responded. " In what 
respects is he bad ? " I asked. " He is not 
entirely bad, but very miserly ," was the re- 
sponse. My next question was, "Are you 
unable to come where he is ? " " Can 
come," said he ; " but he makes it very un- 
pleasant." "Was his presence," I con- 
tinued, "the reason why the spirit-friends 
protested against the medium's coming to 
my house ? " " Yes," said he. 

Now I could breathe freely again. The 
edge of the sharp question was blunted. 
Obviously I was in bad company ; but this 
did not necessarily imply personal enormi- 
ties. At a somewhat later day, it was told 



A DIGRESSION. 89 

me in my own house, through Col. Asa 
Wyman, of Roxbury, medium, " that an old 
heathen hermit miser's bones lie buried deep 
under the house ; and that his spirit hovers 
over the spot much of the time, though 
occasionally it lingers over some treasures in 
Townsend ; " also, "that, when that spirit is 
here, good spirits do not find it pleasant to 
approach." 

Feb. 23, 1853, at Miss Ellis's, in Boston, 
I asked for the name of the spirit who was 
rapping, and received for answer, " Carnilo 
Hootnaw." "Who or what are you?" said 
I. Ans. " I am one that watches over his 
bones, under your house." Natty 's "old 
Chinaman," and the description of him, 
flashed up before the mental vision, and 
excited more of pleasure than of awe. Un- 
derstanding that either Hootnaw was my 
host, or that I was his, and that we must 
nightly make our bed near each other, my 
wish was to be friends with him, and to be 



90 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

his benefactor, if such could be my privilege. 
Even he received a kind greeting ; any spirit 
whatsoever should : for kindness — the ge- 
nuine article — kindness is more potent 
with these visitants, who read the heart, 
than it is with man. And there has yet 
come to me no one, among all the many self- 
ish, malicious, haughty, infidel spirits that 
have accosted me through the mediums, — 
there has yet come no one whom kind words 
and kind wishes have not softened ; though, 
in soma cases, weeks, and even months, 
elapsed before the melting mood came on. 
The worst who come to us can all be sof- 
tened by cups of simple cold water, given in 
the name 'and spirit of charity. Let them 
come, — the blackest of them all, — and, 
God helping, one may safely strive to help 
them first believe, then tremble, then hope, 
then aspire. The " spirits in prison " were 
preached to of old ; and the earnest soul can 
reach them now, and bear to them the terms 



A DIGRESSION. 91 

of deliverance, — glad tidings of peace to 
the troubled, hope to the desponding, joy 
to the wretched. 

A band of Indians, too, with an old 
Black Hawk as sachem, claim a few acres 
under and around our dwelling, as once the 
site of their wigwams, and title to which 
they have never quitclaimed. The lofty 
chieftain still maintains possession. Spirit- 
visitors here seem intruders, unless invited 
or permitted by him. Three years ago, and 
pale-faced spirits found little welcome at 
his council-fire ; but now the springs of gra- 
titude in that deep, capacious soul have been 
reached and opened, and the waters thence 
flow unstinted, furnish us refreshing drinks, 
and bear to us many gifts from spirit -land. 

A mother's love, — how inventive, how 
untiring, how potent ! Some children of 
this red man's tribe, murdered by the 
whites, went prematurely to the spirit hunt- 
ing-grounds, and have suffered loss from 



\)% NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

being shoved aside from Nature's course, 
which is always best. The Christian spirit- 
mother, whose child lives beneath our roof, 
finds those little children of the red man 
whom her own race had murdered, becomes 
to them mother, teacher, helper, in the 
spheres, till the wrong her fathers did has 
been measurably repaired ; and, for that, 
Indian gratitude bids her welcome to the 
chieftain's wigwam, and gives her access to 
her own loved one. 

A patient listening to his tale of wrongs, 
a hearty welcome to the lofty chief when- 
ever he has been disposed to make his pre- 
sence known, have won his favor to me and 
mine. Clairvoyants generally see the stately 
and bright sachem, attended by a small band 
of his followers, escort to our parlor any 
band of our kindred or teachers who visit 
us from the spheres, when we take mediums 
to our fireside. The red men seem to be 
the hosts : our friends conform to their 



A DIGRESSION. \)d 

wishes ; but the hospitality is genuine. 
These Indians are a noble band, robed in 
richest costume, and radiating a light before 
which many a white spirit's halo pales and 
darkens. They are fit recipients of the 
pure, the refined, the glorified. Kind and 
hospitable entertainers of all whom we love, 
and of all who seek us in kindness, these 
lovers of hills over which they once roamed 
in freedom, — lovers of the graves of their 
fathers, and of the spot where their own 
bones repose, — these are our doorkeepers 
and our watchmen. We are guarded by all 
the fidelity and keen-sightedness of the no- 
blest and truest Indian friendship. So read 
many visions. 

Helped by these worshippers in Nature's 
spacious temple, Abby, the mother (my first 
wife), has disarmed the Chinaman of his 
hostility, loosened the chain which bound 
him to his corrupting treasures, and lured 
him up to the fourth sphere. " Father," 



94 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

said Natty, in reference to this, "you know- 
not half the good she does." No, Natty, I 
do not know; yet, remembering what she 
teas, I can fancy her pathway in the spheres 
to be illuminated with Heaven's most win- 
ning smiles, and fenced in by continuous 
monuments of beneficence. Rare powers to 
win love and do good, when cramped in the 
earthly form, must make a loved and an effi- 
cient angel in the skies. Not the noble red 
men alone, but Carnilo Hootnaw the miser, 
have softened, expanded, refined, and beauti- 
fied, in the copious and genial rays of a mo- 
ther's love, mingled with those of a charity 
which knows no race, color, or condition. 
Such the lesson taught. Can mortals get 
any sweet and strengthening news concern- 
ing their loved ones in the spirit-land ? Is 
Spiritualism barren of sweet fruits ? 

A full account of all the scenes connected 
with the pitiable and suspicious miser, and 
with the proud, reserved, but noble sachem, 



A DIGRESSION. 95 

and of the processes by which the one has 
been disarmed of selfishness and offence, and 
taught to unfold and refine, and by which 
the confidence and friendliness of the other 
have been gained, would make a volume, 
which would contain some chapters of thrill- 
ing interest ; but more has been told than 
will find ready credence, and more apparent- 
ly than belongs to our present subject. Yet, 
by "tickling the old Chinaman's toes," or, 
in other words, by his potent smile, winning 
ways, and kind acts, Natty has promoted 
good-humor, and been an efficient helper ; 
and thus the digression is not all aside from 
his history. 



96 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 



CHAPTER V. 



PLAY BLOSSOMS INTO PIETY. 

We return to Natty. At a single sitting, 
two of our female spirit-friends described 
their separate modes of working for man's 
elevation. Then Natty said, " Let my 
mamma come?" — "Certainly." And she 
wrote, — 

" My Friend, — You must not be angry with my 
darling boy. It ofttimes grieves me to have him, so 
pure, use such wild phrases. 

" I am your friend, as a soldier in the cause, 

"Elizabeth Young." 

Next Natty took the pen and wrote, — 

"lama little fellow ; yet I feel that I can do some 
good in this great world. Only a few short hours did 
I breathe the tainted air of sin. My tiny spirit, like a 



PLAY BLOSSOMS INTO PIETY. 97 

small bird, rose above its earthly parents' wings to 
heaven. I found that I did not spring up spontaneous- 
ly ; therefore I sought to find out from whence I did 
come. So, following a troop of angels, I found out 
there was another planet, inhabited by such odd and 
grotesque beings. [' Don't slander us poor mortals, 
Natty,' I said. i Oh, no ! ' he replied ; ' good folks, 
good folks.'] I could not bear to see them clustered 
around a board, and in fear asking for tests. I wanted 
to see a seraphic smile on their countenances ; so I just 
commenced to make them smile, and I found I had lots 
to do. I am happy ; always laughing ; and* as the 
other angel says, I will help to bring about the same 
end." 

Finding him the companion of the pure 
and good, and getting the avowal, that, in 
exciting to laughter, his purpose was to raise 
us above gloom, superstition, and dread of 
"ghosts;" finding him helping to bring 
about the same good end which bright 
angels had at heart, — finding all this, the 
mirth-provoking boy began to loom up as 
an angel of glad-heartedness and of smiling 
piety. Not many days after, when, in the 
7 



98 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

presence of a clairvoyant, I unfolded this 
view of him, and expressed myself his 
debtor for the cheerfulness he was throwing 
over the subject of Spiritualism, and the 
gladness with which every thought of him 
filled my heart, she instantly saw him, as 
she said, " lift his brow to heaven, and in a 
most gladsome dance, while every feature and 
limb emitted the softest and brightest halo, 
express, in most graceful attitudes and mo- 
tions, his thanks to God that he was under- 
stood, and that I was conscious of benefits 
from him. It seemed to be with him," she 
said, " a moment of ecstatic joy, finding hea- 
venward expression through every particle 
of his ethereal form." 

Learning by observation that abundance 
of kind and devout feelings flowed along the 
same channels in which his mirth was ever 
running, the playful boy became a welcome 
visitant. 

He was also found to be a willing, fleet, 



PLAY BLOSSOMS INTO PIETY. 99 

and trusty errand-boy to our spirit-friends. 
Usefulness was his element, though wit and 
mirth would now through all his reports. 
He was more than welcome : we loved him. 
Seeing or feeling this, he said, " Now that 
you own relationship, what shall I call 
you?" — "As you please, Natty : call me 
uncle or father." He answered, " Uncle, I 
think ; yes, uncle and aunty." In a few 
months, however, he took most frequently 
the nearer relationship, and gratified us by 
using the terms father and mother. 

The reader will notice an unusual inter- 
change of the words J and we in this com- 
position. There is a reason for this. Hap- 
pily my present companion harmonizes with 
me in faith, and in affection for Natty. In 
many of the scenes described, she has been 
present, and is essentially joint author. The 
" we" therefore, in many cases, is used to 
designate our joint authority or approbation. 

While yet a nephew, Natty said, — 



100 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

" I have to wander about considerable in 
these parts, and occasionally want a home. 
Now', as you own the relationship, I would 
like to have some one room in the house 
that I may call mine." — " Yes, Natty, take 
your choice." — "Thank you. I will take 
the one where aunty keeps her flowers. 
I will be a rose, shedding the divine fra- 
grance among the green leaves." To this 
all agreed ; and, though the statement will 
have credence with but a small part of the 
world, Natty shows to us, through mediums 
who seldom enter our doors, that he takes 
notice of the growth and blossoming and 
position of the flowers there ; also that he 
notes changes in the position of furniture in 
all parts of the house. He is one of the 
family. 

Though we are little impressible, yet 
perhaps sometimes he makes his presence 
actually felt. But let that be all fancy. 
Even then mind brightens under thoughts of 



PLAY BLOSSOMS INTO PIETY. 101 

him, and heart grows cheerful ; the influence 
is sunny, and we gladly cherish it : it seems 
to come from above, and it tends to carry us 
upward. 

His declaration, often made, that he loves 
the meeting at the family altar, and daily 
makes one in the group of worshippers 
there, has an elevating power, the like of 
which, if felt in every house, would help lift 
mortals up and bring angels down to happy 
and elevating communion. Among all the 
influences of spirits and Spiritualism, none 
other in our experience is so holy and puri- 
fying as that which makes attendant angels 
listeners and co-supplicants with us in the 
hour of prayer. This service becomes affec- 
tionate, earnest, and cheerful ; and it brings, 
more than formerly, courage, self-control, and 
a charity reaching, or willing, wishing to 
reach, wide as the realms of humanity, and 
make its possessor more like Him whose 
gentle rains fall as freely upon the unjust as 
upon others. 



102 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

"Who would wish to cut us off from the 
joy aud help we get in the hour of prayer 
from the presence of such a child, even if he 
were but the creature of our fancies ? Do 
not that, good friends, but rather let your 
own fancies call around yourselves bright 
cherubs to join with you in acts of prayer ; 
for even fancied ones, if you deem ours 
such, — yes, fancied ones, — may fan the 
flames of daily and hourly devotions, and 
become helpers heavenward. When I read 
this last passage in the presence of a medium, 
the Indian chief lied Jacket said through 
her, — 

' And "< hover round when the hour of prayer 
Cornea on at the close of • 
'Midst the hallowed family band we're, there, 
And w bear those prayers to heaven.'''' 

The chief said these lines were not origi- 
nal with him, but they flowed out he knew 
not why. The fact is eloquent and touch- 
ing, whoever, above or below, may utter it. 
Spirits bear our prayers to heaven. 



natty's prattlxngs. 103 



CHAPTER VI. 



NATTY'S PRATTLINGS. 

Some of the sayings of our little companion 
have been pencilled clown ; but the most of 
them have never been recorded. A few that 
were noted down, and others that are well 
remembered, will be given to the reader. 
And what will they be ? — specimens of 
angelic wisdom ? Perhaps so ; and the tone 
and manner will come in direct conflict with 
the solemn air and voice which our common 
education leads most minds to expect from 
spirits. A new lesson is being learned ; 
heaven is a happier place than our teachers 
have told us ; there is more playfulness, 
more naturalness, more fun and frolic, more 
mingling of the gay with the grave, where 



104 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

the departed dwell, and in the hearts of 
good spirits above, than we had been 
trained to believe. 

It is Natty's mission, in part, to help 
make the world better by making it laugh. 
There would be little fidelity to the heavenly 
purpose in trying to make the angel's words 
conform to the expectations of those who 
know nothing about the characteristics of 
heaven's inhabitants. What an angel should 
do can best be learned by observing what he 
docs. Seeing us timid, long-faced, and 
afraid of ghosts, Natty wanted to draw out 
" a seraphic smile upon men's faces ; and he 
found he had lots to rfo," before the smile 
would come and stay. Let him take his 
own course, and talk in his own way. It 
were unwise to hinder his beneficent design ; 
therefore his words will not be pruned to 
meet the sober taste of common faith. 

The prattlings of childhood become stale 
and lifeless when put in print. But have a 






natty's prattlings. 105 

little patience ; for the mouths of babes are 
sometimes channels of greater naturalness, 
and more perfect praise, than often come 
through the lips or pens of learning and 
eloquence. 

Natty says, " My friend, you must not 
put on a long face when you come to talk 
with supposed ghosts. You must not be- 
lieve all they tell you to." 

Good advice, though from young lips. 
Spiritualists, many of them, need it much. 
We are too prone to drop the chin, to be- 
come grave and solemn, to be awed, at the 
thought of spirit-presence ; too prone also 
to take what comes through mediums as 
unerring and authoritative. " Prove all 
things ;" "try the spirits." 

To others also, to "rulers and phari- 
sees," the spirit of his advice will be very 
useful, provided they should be waylaid or 
entrapped by a modern ghost. Let such 
laugh rather than shrink and fear ; for little 



106 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

Natty, and such as lie, are very harmless, 
playful ghosts, whom smiles entice. Smile 
and he cordial when they come ; for per- 
chance you may commune with angels of 
G!od, who bring heavenly messages for all 
" that have ears to hear." 

Natty. " We do not become free at twenty- 
one ; for I am a child at more than thirty." 

True, a child in earth's matters ; scarcely 
more than three years old as a talker and 
actor and learner among men. What more 
than a child can we look for ? In the spheres, 
he is an angel of near forty ; on earth, of 
less than four. He comes to learn as well 
as to teach ; and childhood gives the truest 
expression of his relation to us. Ponder 
this ; think of your own kindred who left 
earth in infancy. What features and what 
stature does the mind give to them ? Does 
Natty clash with your spontaneous, unstu- 
died mental pictures of your own spirit- 
infants ? And, should they come to you, 






natty's pbattlings. 107 

would you know them if they were other 
than little children ? We are taught that 
spirits grow, and yet " have power to assume 
any form which the occasion requires." To 
the form assumed, whatever that may be, 
they will most likely fit both word and ac- 
tion. Childish words and ways befit a 
child's form. 

Natty. " Please set a plate and chair for 
me, pa, at your Thanksgiving dinner. I 
won't eat much, nor take up much room." 

Hospitality gets sweet reward, cheerful- 
ness feels new life, sense of bereavement or 
of loneliness parts with its chill, when kissed 
by the rays of a faith that — 



" There are more guests at table than the hosts 
Invited." 



Mrs. Putnam asked our messenger to call 
her spirit-mother. Off he went in a flash, 
but soon returned, saying, " I forgot to ask 
her name. Only fancy me running about 



108 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

through the spheres, all out of breath, and 
asking all the spirits if they know Mrs. A. 

P.'s mother ! " — " Sarah B ," was the 

response. He vanished, but soon came back, 

exclaiming, " Here she is, — Sally B ." 

The mother had come. Friends always 
called her Sally. Header, swift and willing 
messengers stand waiting to bear your invi- 
tation up to loved ones in the spheres. 

Once, while he was using a medium, a 
hand-organ began to grind its grist under 
the window. Natty was missing, but soon 
came back, saying, " I've been out on the 
organ, playing monkey. I can go it grandly, 
all but the tail. Father, when you come to 
see me, you w 11 find that Natty and music 
mean the same thing." More of fun comes 
from above than is dreamed of in some phi- 
losophies. 

When he was gazing at a stranger, through 
medium-eyes, the stranger was introduced 
to him as Mrs. Branch. " Think I'll hop 



natty's puattlings. 109 

on to that branch, and pay toll with a song." 
Afterwards, being asked to flit to that branch, 
he said, "When the cherries are ripe." She 
was a medium, but not then well suited to 
his powers. Not all spirits can use the 
same instruments. 

While at our table, the medium wrote, 
" Call that little man Natty." — " What little 
man ? " we asked. " The one over the fire- 
place," was the reply. Looking toward the 
mantle-piece, we saw there a toy of the 
house, — a gutta-percha image, — a little 
consequential man of ludicrous or rueful 
visage according to the pressure applied. 
Think of a spirit with such a form and face, 
think of such a form and face as being the 
likeness of a laughing cherub, and you may 
fancy that the ludicrous produced in us con- 
vulsions of laughter. Soon he wrote, " Give 
me a clean cravat ; mine is dirty." Taking 
the image to the table, we found its neck 
bound in a dirty white tape. Pink ribbon 



110 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

was soon substituted. Afterwards he often 
asked for change of raiment ; and, especially 
when I met stranger-mediums abroad, he 
would send some directions to " mother " or 
" aunty " about his dress. Once he said, 
" Aunty, I want a new coat : it is not be- 
coming a gentleman's son to appear in com- 
pany out at the elbows." Finding me less 
cheerful than usual one morning, he broke 
the spell by the following allusion to the 
colors he had worn : " 1" never had the blues 
in my life, excepting when I had my blue 
coat on." The gutta-percha started up be- 
fore me in a twinkle, and laugh I must. 

Coming one evening as the herald of 
higher spirits, and putting us in fit trim to 
receive them cheerfully, he withdrew for an 
hour, but then popped back, saying, " I 
have been out playing with the spirit-boys 
this moonlight night." "What was your 
sport, Natty ? " " Chasing the steamboat, 
and playing with the dancing lights upon 



natty's peattlings. Ill 

her wake. 5 ' Mother, can your lost infant 
find innocent sports with playmates in the 
spheres ? 

Dec. 23. — My spirit-wife, beckoning 
with the medium's hand to something above, 
said, " Come, little messenger-bird, — come 
and scatter thy sweet flowers. Natty is our 
fleet messenger, known through all the 
spheres. His winning smile gains him ad- 
mission everywhere. He is in high glee 
to-night." 

Instantly seizing the instrument, he said, 
" Uncle Put, hang up my stocking ; but don't 
put a switch in it. I've been round among 
the boys, about these times, to see what they 
are up to ; and now, who shall we have for 
Santa Claus ? I think I'll have aunty." 

Meeting a sedate lady for the first and 
only time in my life, her hand was moved 
to write something which she refused to read 
aloud, or to show, because it was silly. Sus- 
pecting ivho the wag might be, I asked him 



112 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

to write my name. " Uncle Toby," came 
through the relucting hand. " What," my 
next question was, — "what do you call my 
wife ? " — " Aunty Prim," came from the 
pencil. " Now," said I, " write your own 
true name ; " and " Ding-dong-bell " was 
written. Never was modest medium more 
ashamed of words that would be written, 
nolens volcns. 

A clairvoyant saw the boy ride into the 
midst of a large circle on the back of an 
intruding clog. Coming near to her, he 
whispered, " I thought you were getting too 
much of the spiritual, so I have brought a 
little animal. 

Tush ! nonsense ! you say. Why print 
such stuff? Mainly, good reader, to furnish 
a little of the evidence there is that human 
nature, soaring to the spheres above, remains 
human nature still ; that the laughing, frolic- 
some child may at times laugh and frolic on, 
though taken to another home. God is good. 



natty's prattiings. 113 

The lesson admits of wider application. 
What we have been makes us what we are : 
the present is, and ever will be, the natural 
outgrowth from the past. Now and for ever, 
"whatsoever one sows, that shall he also 
reap." "When he shall sow good seed, and 
till well the crop to maturity, then, and 
not till then, shall he be admitted to the 
feast upon good things. But how know 
what seed will give good fruits ? Of little 
children, and such as they, is the kingdom 
of heaven ; and Natty, . coming from there, 
full to running oyer of fun and frolic, shows 
us, that, in the soil and climate of the upper 
fields, the seeds of laughter and merriment 
germinate and thrive, and bear fruit fit to 
lay upon the altar of thanksgiving to Him 
who laughs in the merry song of the bird, 
and smiles through the petals of the daisy 
or the rose. And when sown among other 
seeds, upon the soil we are now cultivating, 
why may not the stalks from them tower 



114 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

as high into the heavens, and ripen their 
pleasant fruits as well in upper regions, as 
those from aught else that we can sow? 
The sports and frolics and loud laughs of a 
Thanksgiving or Christmas evening may be 
not merely more congenial to the tastes of 
little children, but also more fitted to fur- 
nish the food they will relish at the festive 
board in the land to which such go, than are 
the long, solemn prayers and the protracted 
services of the church on those days. 

Possibly it has been judged in other 
regions that it would be better for men to 
become like their own little children, than 
for them to try to teach those little children 
to become such men as they themselves now 
are ; better that our teachers and pupils 
should exchange positions ; better that the 
little ones should be left to lure us, by 
example, to follow the higher law published 
on their spontaneous words and acts, 
than that we should school them to obey 
the dwarfing rules of custom and sombre 



natty's pbattlings. 115 

view of God's government. In the form of 
a playful child, Natty may be better suited 
to our truest wants, and our existing condi- 
tion, than he would be as a grave and wise 
spirit of twoscore. True, we may think 
ourselves prepared to enter any college, — 
nay, that we might start at once sophomores 
in spiritual love ; but the A B C of Spiritual- 
ism has been mastered by few as yet. Who 
is old enough to even attend the infant 
school ? Better for most of us to play with 
infants a while longer, to find some Nat- 
ty to prattle nature with, and get vigor 
•enough to climb out of the cradle, the stand- 
ing-stool, — ay, down the steps and out of 
doors, — and then learn to walk alone on 
Nature's carpet, before we choose our teach- 
ers or select our school. The teachers should 
be better judges of modes and matter of in- 
struction wanted than their pupils. When 
angels come, though as children, let them 
give true angelic lessons, and not be forced 
to meet the demands of our wise ignorance. 



116 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 



CHAPTER VII. 



HIS DOINGS AND SAYINGS. 

The child does not always move on the 
same plane. We give a few more of his 
sayings and doings, which differ somewhat 
from the preceding. 

On a cloudy morning, we failed for a long 
time to get any thing through our medium, 
though she was usually a very facile one. 
At length her pencil began, and wrote, — 

" 23, 5, 3, 1, 14, 14, 15, 20, 3, 15, 13, 13, 21, 14, 9, 3, 1, 20, 
5,20,15,4,1,25. "Natty." 

A puzzle, this. After spending several 
minutes in attempts at solution, it occurred 
to one present that these figures might be 
substitutes for letters. No sooner was this 



HIS DOINGS AND SAYINGS. 117 

mental question distinctly raised, though 
not uttered, than, the medium pointed to 
that person, saying, " He has guessed it." 
Then, calling 1 A, 2 B, &c, we put W in 
place of 23, and E in place of 5. The sen- 
tence, thus deciphered, read, — 

" We cannot communicate to-day." 

" Then, Natty," said I, " how did you 
make those figures ? " Am. " I am a ge- 
nius." — "True," was my rejoinder ; and I 
added, "We would like another product of 
your genius." Instantly, and rapidly as 
sight could follow, we had — 

" 15, 4, 20, 21, 16, 5, 13, 14, 9, 1, 19, 19, 1, 12, 7, 5, 19, 1, 
3, 4, 14, 1, 4, 14, 5, 19, 3, 13, 15, 20, 5, 8, 20, 18, 9, 1, 6." 

Then, trying the former process, we found, 
o, d, t, u, p, e, m, &c. When the medium 
and all of us had tried several minutes to 
find a solution, her hand caught the pencil, 
and wrote, " Stupid folks ! can't you read 



118 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

backwards ? " Taking the hint, we found 
that od (significant word), with the letters 
changed in position, made do, and that tup 
made put, and that the whole read, " Do put 
me in a glass case, and send me to the Fair." 
This happened just before the Spiritualist 
Fair of the autumn (October, 1854), and I 
have regarded it as one of the most singular 
productions of odyle that has come under 
my notice. Such an agent would require a 
full course of education at President Ma- 
han's college before it could come up to 
such facility of execution as it here dis- 
played. 

This was furnished some time in early 
autumn of 1854 ; and it contains an obvious 
allusion to the picture, though at that time 
there was not, and never had been, a thought 
in the mind of any person in the body, so 
far as I can judge, that his likeness was to 
be taken at any time. 

This case gives intelligence singularly 



HIS DOINGS AND SAYINGS. 119 

displayed; and it involves, whether such 
was the design or not, a prophecy which has 
been substantially fulfilled. 

Again he said, "Your little daughter (a 
child of mine that never breathed earth's 
air) — your little daughter often comes, or 
is sent, to you, as all little spirits are to their 
parents, so that they may learn who are their 
parents, and not be left to wander about 
through the spheres, and call anybody whom 
they meet father and mother, because they 
don't know who the right ones are." It 
does the parental heart no harm to learn 
that the child which fled before perception 
and conscious love unfolded is yet brought 
back to fan the parent's brows, to kiss pa- 
rental lips, and nestle on its earthly father's 
breast ; to learn who the father or mother is, 
and thus be prepared to discern relationship, 
and rush to give us the filial embrace, when 
our spirits shall leave the form, and long to 
meet our kindred in the skies. 



120 NATTY, A SPIRIT, 

At a house where spiritualists congregate, 
and where the manifestations are frequent 
and distinct, he said to me, on Christmas 
Day, " Wish you a merry Christmas. Why 
don't you bring all the folks here, — my 
cousin, and those at the other house ? It 
would do them all good." — " No, Natty : it 
would do them no good while their hearts 
are closed against you." — " They are not 
closed always. I have a way of peeking 
into their thoughts, and can tell what they 
want. They are sensitive plants. When 
they sit down alone, the leaves open, and 
seek our sunlight and the dewdrops we 
sprinkle. I can look in then ; but, when 
you and mother come near, they close up, 
for fear you will look in too. Sensitive 
plants, and century plants also, — slow in 
maturing, but valuable when they come to 
blossom. Bring them here, and they will 
believe at least that Natty comes ; and that 
will please you, Uncle Put." From the 



HIS DOINGS AND SAYINGS. l£l 

child's lips, there slip out many tidbits of 
information, which, help us to judge of the 
time and way to hold the cup of knowledge 
to the lips of those whom we love. Until 
they thirst for the rills that flow from above, 
the waters, if borne to them, would stand 
untasted. Our monitor will see the signs of 
thirst when it comes on ; and, at his prompt- 
ings, we will hand them the goblet with 
pleasure. 

In this connection may come in the follow- 
ing burst from his lips : — 

" O pa ! the great sun of truth, that now 
gilds the eastern horizon, will yet shine upon 
all those whom I love. The hidden diamond 
of love will be sought for more patiently. 
Some truth-seeking mortal will pluck it 
from its resting-place, and distribute it 
among mortals. It will fall as valued seed 
in many uncultivated gardens ; and passing 
gardeners will transplant the shoots into 



122 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

pearly pots, and generously offer to morta- 
lity. Going to dine with you to-day." 

From such an interview, one must needs 
sit down at the Christmas-board believing 
that invisible guests throng his table, filled 
with a love like His whose nativity was he- 
ralded by the angelic song, " Peace on earth, 
good-will to man." Faith sings it anew, 
both for Him of old, and for all who now 
descend in his Father's name. 

One lovely morning in May, Natty gave 
us, — 

il Each flower, each plant, each stem, that grows, 
But to the heart perfection flirom; 
And each doth BOme sweet anthem sing, 
In honor of these days of spring, — 
The spring of truth we mean, 
That sends warm rays of wisdom, 
While it blends harmonious chords 
From Nature's bower, 
On hearts to paint the purest flower." 

A gathering of spiritualists in a grove 
was to come off in a few days. I had given 
the question of attendance no particular 



HIS DOINGS AND SAYINGS. 123 

thought ; when he said, " Go to the temple 
of Nature, father, on Wednesday next, to 
recreate. Tell mother to go, too, to the 
nicpic, Wednesday the 20th, if the sky don't 
leak ; and, if it does, then the first day that 
God smiles. Those gatherings (Spiritual 
picnics) do good, if we can rule." In this 
case, as in all others, he wished me to exercise 
my own judgment. I did so, and remained 
at home. But the little if put in by him, 
stands doorkeeper to a great matter. Spirits 
are not always more powerful than man. 
Because of unbelief, Jesus did not, on one 
occasion, do many mighty works. 

" Did you ever go a-fishing, father ? " — 
" Yes, Natty ; but why ask that ? " Am. 
" Because of the way in which you bait your 
hook." — " Explain ; for I don't understand." 
— " Why didn't you hook that preacher by 
the gills with one hand, and sweep a net 
around the congregation with the other? 



124 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

They are all in ; there is terrible splashing 
in the water : but they can't get out." 

One more word from him, and he shall be 
dismissed from the stand till others have 
spoken. But he will not be idle: he says, 
" I must hie me away to the fair sunny hills 
of the spirit-land, and study my Latin les- 
son. Good-by!" 

"Tarry with us/' — says Abby to him, 
— " tarry with us, bright messenger-bird ! 
Thy brow was never touched by the finger 
of Care. There is much wisdom in thee. 
Thy voyage over the ocean of life was but 
a span. Thou partedst from the friends 
of earth to cheer them unseen. Come, touch 
thy sweet harp to cheer the lone traveller. 
Many have been touched by thy magic 
wand. Much good hast thou done, little 
fairy-bird ! Float, float on thy way." 



pat's testimony. 125 



CHAPTER VIII. 



PAT'S TESTIMONY. 

Pat Magtjire, who touchingly thanks Natty 
and others for help to rise out of purgatory, 
may tell his story now. We copy our ac- 
count and' comments from the "New-Eng- 
land Spiritualist " of May 5, and June 
23: — 

" Sitting one day by the side of a medium, she was 
influenced by a spirit calling himself ' Pat,' who offers 
pretty good evidence that he was my acquaintance 
while in the form. Instead of speaking about himself, 
he volunteered to speak about my little spirit-friend 
Natty. He first asked, — 

" ' And what do you suppose I saw the boy about 
the other day ? ' 

" ' I can't guess,' was my answer : 'just tell me.' 

" ' "Well, you know, he was passing along through 
the strate, and he saw a poor, feeble old man sawing 



126 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

slow at the log of wood ; and, without so much as stop- 
ping to ax a question to see whether the old man had 
the brogue or not, the little boy jumped upon his back, 
and pushed at his elbows ; and the saw it jumped and 
it new ; and the old man he thought it must have got 
graced, it run so ; and he looked, and he couldn't find 
the grace ; and he looked round to see if it wasn't the 
elbow grace, and he couldn't find that. And the boy 
he kept pushing and pulling; and he helped the old 
man saw all the sticks, and get his few coppers the 
sooner to get the bread for his childers. And, when it 
was done, the little boy was all out of breath, and all 
of a sweat ; but he jumped up, and, faith, he was a half 
a foot taller for that same.' 

" So much from one spirit concerning the kindness 
and beneficence of another. 

" Be the above spiritual or not in origin, it contains 
a pleasant moral or two. Cheerfulness and energy, 
imparted by any of us to the mind of the desponding 
and weak, will give vigor to the laborer, and facilitate 
the accomplishment of his tasks. Also the aid we give 
to others will promote our own upward growth. For 
each kindly act, any soul may perhaps become ' a half 
a foot taller for that same.' " 

Again : — 

" ' Come, Natty, come ! ' says Pat, beckoning at 
vacancy with the medium's hand. ' Come, Natty, 



pat's testimony. 127 

come ! ' Then, turning to me, he said, ' Bad luck to 
yer 'onor, iv yer think to have the boy the blessed 
day! ' 

" ' Why don't he come, Pat ? What is he about ? ' 

" 'Aboot, is it ? He's got a wee bit of a baby in a 
basket of fluers [flowers], an' is showing it the nosegay, 
an' making it laugh.' 

" < How came he by a baby ? ' 

« t Why, yer 'onor, ye see, as Natty was passing 
along the strate down yonder, he went mto a poor 
house, an' there he found a wee bit of a baby, an' it 
was sickly an' fable an' cold an' hungry. And Natty 
he went till it, an' he brathed into it, an' on to it, an' 
around it, an' he made the wee bit thing think it had 
had its supper, an' was comfortable like ; an' it went off 
to slape, an' it slept the night. He came the next 
day to see it, an' the wee thing was no better ; an' so 
Natty he went up to consult the big spirits aboot it, an' 
they concluded it was diaper to take the wee thing up 
there. So Natty he come back to fetch it, an' he's put 
it in a basket of bright Jluers, an' he is tending an' 
showing it the fluers, an' making it smile, an' taking it 
round to find its godfather an' its godmother. Indade, 
when I was with you, I thought it was them that stood 
at the font that was to be the godfathers an' godmothers 
always ; but, now I have come here, I see it is them that 
loves 'em best. The boy can't come to ye till he has 
found 'em.' 



128 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

" Such were the reasons Pat gave why my little 
friend could not come then. He was finding for an 
infant spirit its spirit-parents. Duties elsewhere may 
often detain the spirit-friends upon whom we call. 

" Does the infant, while in the body, receive soothing 
influences from attendant spirits ? and, when the em- 
bryo soul leaves the earth, is it taken in charge by some 
kind and attentive inhabitant of the ethereal realms ? 
Have wise spirits above any power to determine whe- 
ther it is best to take a spirit out of its sickly body, or 
to leave it where it is? Are they, under God, his 
trusted reapers, set to gather in when in their judg- 
ment it is best so to do? Pat's statement suggests 
such inquiries ; but we know too little yet to give the 
proper answers. 

" Every reader will smile at the quaint remark, that 
' the big spirits concluded it would be chaper to take 
the wee thing up there.' Many may think that the 
words border upon irreverence. Not necessarily so. 
If spirits are allowed to advise for us with the same 
freedom in which we advise each other, why may they 
not consider whether, on the whole, they can best pro- 
mote the good of a sickly infant by releasing it from 
its body? Should they conclude that such a course 
was best, Pat would very naturally say ' chapesV 

" That Spiritualism admits of cheerfulness, or even 
playfulness, when speaking of the future life and of 
that event which constitutes birth into the spheres 



pat's testimony. 129 

above, is obviously true ; and, if Pat were in this case 
moved by genuine mirthfulness, there might be no 
more impropriety in it than there is in the smiles and 
playful remarks with which we welcome the new-born 
child to our domestic circle. God forbid ! — yes, that 
God who causes that the first workings of intelligence 
within shall mantle the infant's face with smiles, and 
thus shows that mirthfulness is the soul's first condition, 
— may He forbid us to argue that any thing is wrong, 
on the sole ground that it removes gloom from the 
bereaved, and lets them robe their own faces in the hues 
of bright hope and cheerful faith." 



130 



NATTY, A SPIRIT. 



CHAPTER IX. 



PROCURING MEDICINE. 

A case in which Natty worked jointly with 
the spirits of our blood-relations to bring us 
the means of health, though published be- 
fore, must have a place in this biography. 
We take once more from a " New-England 
Spiritualist " of 1855 : — 

" Mr. Newton, — During the latter part of Decem- 
ber last, and through most of the month of January, 
I was troubled with an unusual cough, and with irrita- 
tion of the surface of the throat. My wife had ailings 
which would be named the same as mine, though they 
were not as unusual with her as with me. Common, 
simple remedies were used by us, and were perhaps all 
that our cases required. We certainly did not think it 
very needful to seek for any prescriptions, other than 
our own experience and knowledge would suggest; 
and yet some medicines were furnished us which we 



PROCURING MEDICINE. 131 

did not solicit. The story which attaches to them is in- 
teresting to us, and possibly may prove so to some of 
your readers. 

" One evening about the middle of January, Mrs. 
Sisson, of Somerville, being at home, with no one pre- 
sent but her husband, was impressed, and, in the state, 
told her husband to take pen and write. She then 
gave the ingredients and proportions for six different 
medicines, and stated that she herself must procure the 
articles and prepare the compounds. The husband 
asked what spirit was making the prescriptions. Ans. 
' Natty Putnam. You may call it Putnam, though that 
is not the true name.' 1 Mr. Sisson then asked, ' Who 
do you want the medicines for ? ' Ans. * For my father 
and mother ; that is, J call them so, though they are 

not.' (This ' Natty ' often comes to Mrs. P and 

myself, and manifests much attachment to us both, 
though in no way related to either. His true name 
was Young. He lived only five days on earth, but 
would now be, if living in the form, between thirty-five 
and forty years old. It is his pleasure to present him- 
self as an infant in size, though he gives evidence of 
having an old head on his young shoulders.) 

" Mrs. Sisson procured the materials, and complied 
with all the directions for boiling and mixing. While 
doing this, she supposed that her preparations were for 
the use of a couple by the name of Putnam ; but as to 
where they lived, what were their Christian names, 



13:2 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

what was their state of body or of mind, she had no 
knowledge and no definite thought. Shortly after the 
medicines had been prepared, she met a friend of ours 
in Boston, to whom she told her story. This friend, 
hearing the names ■ Natty ' and ' Putnam ' in connec- 
tion, said at once, ' Why, Mr. Putnam, of Roxbury, is 
meant ; for he has a spirit by the name of Natty, who 
often comes to him.' — 'Well,' said Mrs. Sisson, 'it 
may be so; but I shall not send the medicines to him, 
for he is an entire stranger to me.' Two or three days 
later, J met this Boston friend, who told me what Mrs. 
Sisson had said and done, and who advised me to find 
her. '.Vo,' was my answer : ' she is a stranger, and I 
shall not intrude.' On the following Monday evening, 
I met a circle at Mrs. Leeds's, 45, Carver Street, Bos- 
ton, Mrs. Leeds being the medium. While at the table, 
my little friend Natty made known his presence; when 
I at once asked him if he had been preparing any medi- 
cines for us. ' Yes,' he answered, ' Charles and I have.' 
— ' How shall we obtain them ? ' was my next question. 
He said, • I will make her bring them over to you.' — 
' "When ? ' I asked. ' Wednesday, perhaps,' he replied. 
My wife said, ' No, not "Wednesday, Natty ; for 1 am 
engaged that day.' I then said, 'Natty, bring her 
over to dine with us to-mon'ow.'' — ' I'll try,' he said; 
and he was gone. 

" The next day, at about five minutes before our 
dining-hour, the door-bell of my house on Eustis Street, 



PROCURING MEDICINE. 133 

Roxbury, was rung. Going to the door myself, I met 
there a stranger-lady, with bottles in her hands. ' Mrs. 
Sisson, I presume,' was my salutation. ' Yes ; and is 
this Mr. Putnam ? ' she replied. After a few minutes, 
when seated in the parlor, I said to Mrs. Sisson, ' How 
happened you to come here, and to come to-day ? ' She 
answered, ' Last evening? I was impressed that I must 
leave my work to-day, and take those medicines over 
to a Mr. Putnam, in Roxbury. This morning, it being 
ironing-day, — and I do my own work, — I decided that 
I would go about my work at home, and not come over 
to-day ; but, when I tried, I could not do my work, 
for something within said, You must go over to-day. 
So I started, — came over into Washington Street, 
Boston, and saw omnibus after omnibus pass me, let- 
tered " Roxbury ; " but something said, " Not that one, 
not that one ; " till, as the fifth or sixth came along, the 
voice said, "Get in." I obeyed; and, after riding a 
mile or more, I asked the driver if he could tell me 
where Mr. Putnam, of Roxbury, lived. " Which Mr. 
Putnam," he asked ; " the minister, or the coal-dealer ? " 
" I don't know," I said. " I can't tell you, then ; for 
they are a mile apart, on different routes." So said the 
driver. While riding on, in uncertainty as to where I 
should bring up, my inward monitor said, " Get out." 
I left the omnibus directly in front of your house, and 
came on to your doorstep without direction from any 



134 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

outward source.' She had come in the only line of 
Roxbury coaches that passes my door. 

" After we had dined, Mrs. Putnam took a daguer- 
reotype likeness of her brother Charles, and laid it, 
without comment, upon a table, at which we invited 
Mrs. Sisson to sit with us. Instantly upon coming to 
the table, her eye fell upon the daguerreotype ; and, 
taking it up, she said, ' Why, 1 have seen that person 
before ! Oh, yes ! that is the very face, glasses and all, 
that was with Natty that night at my house when he 
made the prescriptions ; and (turning to Mrs. Putnam) 
that is your brother.' 

" Three kinds of medicines were left for each of us ; 
and we soon commenced taking them for our lungs and 
throats. A week later, more or less, Mrs. Sisson in- 
formed me that one of mj/rmedicines was for ' that scro- 
fula,' and that one of Mrs. Putnam's was for an heredi- 
tary difficulty, which the medium named and described 
correctly. In my own case, it is true that scrofula has 
always been in my system to such an extent as to 
discharge at one of my ears about as often as once a 
month, through my whole life, and yet has occasioned 
so little acute suffering that only a very few of my 
nearest friends have ever known that it was in my 
system. The predisposition of Mrs. Putnam to a de- 
finite disease is scarcely more known. Here medi- 
cines were prepared for our separate chronic difficulties, 



PROCURING MEDICINE. 135 

by Mrs. Sisson, an entire week before she had seen either 
of us. 

" And now may I ask, Whose mind worked through 
Mrs. Sisson's organism, over at Somerville, five miles 
from our home, while she was an entire stranger to us, 
and yet so worked as to disclose those physical weak- 
nesses, which were scarcely known beyond the walls of 
our own house ? Whose mind did this ? This is the 
chief question. Whose mind was at work ? ' Natty ' 
and ' Charles,' spirits, profess to have done the work, 
Will some doubter of the power of spirits to come to 
earth tell me how either my mind could thus have 
worked in a stranger, five miles from me, or how hers 
could have become acquainted with those facts which 
were not known to our friends and neighbors ? 

"This case is described much less for the purpose 
of showing the value of the medicines, than for furnish- 
ing evidence of the fact that there was an invisible 
physician." 

The efficacy of some of these medicines, 
and their fitness to produce any thing like 
eradication of hereditary disease, cannot well 
be known until after long periods of trial. 
Years might be too short for digging out 
and removing the unhealthy particles which 



136 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

fifty years have been embedding and cement- 
ing through all parts of the system. An 
agent that should detach them all suddenly 
would most likely shatter the whole system. 
Thorough work, in a case like this, must 
be slow, and even then will probably bring 
some debility and suffering as the necessary 
conditions of the way to health. One of us 
was early taught to look for little perceptible 
benefit until the summer of 1856, and not for 
full results until the winter following. The 
processes by which our spirit-friends reached 
us, and the evidence of their continued in- 
terest in our health, are the points of inte- 
rest. Proofs of the presence and affection 
of the departed, and not of their wisdom or 
skill as doctors or nurses, are what man pro- 
perly seeks first. When those proofs have 
become sufficient, when one believes that 
spirits can prescribe, then is it early enough 
to ask whether they will do it wisely or not. 
If it was faith that saved in olden times, the 



PROCURING MEDICINE. 137 

same faith, deposited in the cup for medi- 
cine, will have efficacy now. Its attractive 
power is little understood. It draws health- 
ful currents from the very doctor, so that 
he perceives that "virtue has gone out of 
him ; " and it is only when his virtues min- 
gle in the cup that best results follow. True 
this of doctors, both in the flesh and out of 
it. Faith that there is a doctor precedes 
inquiry as to his skill ; faith in his skill 
gives efficacy to his prescriptions. 

We believe that we have invisible doc- 
tors ; not Natty, not our brothers and sis- 
ters, but students of Nature, whose optics 
can discern the minutest particles and the 
smallest life-rills in every organ of the sys- 
tem ; and who, — some of them, — from the 
days of Galen down to now, have been 
learning what plants contain the properties 
best suited to remedy the difficulties that 
may be existing in each organ of the body ; 
and who, before prescribing, examine all 



138 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

parts, and, in the prescription, blend things 
suited to each fundamental difficulty. The 
prescription is not from the playful boy ; 
but he and our kindred call upon more skil- 
ful doctors, and arrange for their visits to us. 
There, as here, many an old nurse, be she 
wife, widow, or maid, thinks that she knows 
better than the doctor, and will herself pre- 
scribe. Many, too, in the upper spheres, 
still ride their old hobbies, whether they 
were M.D.'s or quacks ; and you can, with 
some mediums, have Allopathic, Homoeopa- 
thic, Hydropathic, or almost any other pathic 
you choose, provided you yourself are wedded 
to that, and, by your faith and will, attract 
your like, and repel those who differ. Prove 
all things, even spirit-doctors. Many, very 
many, wonderful cures have been effected 
by them ; and yet prescriptions may come 
through mediums, which, speaking for my- 
self alone, seem worse than useless. 

In our own case, we have been favored 



PROCURING MEDICINE. 139 

with the history written upon the interiors 
of our organism from before birth up to the 
present time. The condition of each princi- 
pal organ has been described, its wants stated, 
and the plant named which abounds in the 
properties in which the organ is deficient. 
"We have been treated as rational patients, 
left to judge for ourselves ; and yet the de- 
scription of our condition gives very minute 
intelligence, harmonizing well with our sen- 
sations in the past, and thus giving evidence 
of its accuracy. 

Filial affection, surviving in the spheres, 
sought Natty's aid to bring belief to a suf- 
fering father. First the spirit of the me- 
dium leaves her body, and flitting, in com- 
pany with Natty and the spirit-relatives, 
five miles from her Jiome, enters the little 
sitting-room where the aged sire and a lady 
sit. Clairvoyant, she sees the malady, and 
sees the mental state of each in regard to 



140 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

Spiritualism. A medicine is agreed upon, 
and she is directed to prepare it. 

Her singular vision she relates in com- 
pany, describing minutely the room, the 
old gentleman, and the lady, and wonders 
where the place and who the people can be. 
JVc could not fail in applying the descrip- 
tion. The room and people, and their dress, 
were familiar ; but we gave no hint to any 
one, at any time or anywhere, that we recog- 
nized the objects. 

Soon after this, the medium, taking the 
prepared medicine, was obliged to leave her 
home, and go, she knew not whither, to offer 
the gift of filial love. Following impressions 
as to points of compass, and what omnibus 
to take, she rode on blindly till there came 
a prompting to pull the strap. Getting out 
in front of a large house, she made her 
way timidly up the yard ; was fawned upon, 
cordially greeted, and attended up the steps, 
by the watch-dog ; entered the house, and 



PROCURING MEDICINE. 141 

saw there upon the walls a likeness of the 
spirit who was seeking to relieve his father. 
A stranger thus coming among strangers, 
and to those who have no faith in the power 
or wish of spirits to help those who still 
remain in the form, had no right to ex- 
pect a cordial greeting or thanks. The dog, 
gifted with some keener sense than man, 
seems to have seen or felt the presence of 
his former friend ; and he, to the utmost of 
his power, made the call pleasant. 

Leaving the house, and wandering she 
knew not whither, this medium, after an 
half-hour's walk or more, found herself in 
front of our dwelling, came in, and told the 
whole story. Then, from Natty and his at- 
tendants, we learned that her entrance within 
those walls carried an atmosphere in which 
the loving spirits could attend her, and thus 
gain an entrance to their former house. 
Joyous event to them ! Once entering, they 
had faith that (by some process unexplained 



142 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

to us) they could ever after keep it open, 
and have free access to father and sisters. 

In all this, our little messenger-bird was 
a prompt and vigilant, and yet a laughing, 
marshal of the spirit-band. He finds his 
bliss in seeing others blessed. 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 143 



CHAPTER X. 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 

The finest lessons of Spiritualism, — soul- 
permeating, sinking to one's deepest inner 
wells of charity, and drawing thence waters 
of life for himself and others, — these les- 
sons or experiences are seldom named upon 
the house-tops or at the corners of streets. 
Like communings with the pure and holy- 
One, they feel most at home in the closet, 
with its door shut. Yet our present task 
would fail of fair performance, were we to 
leave this door unopened. Natty's biogra- 
phy might lack its most instructive page, 
were we here remiss. 

Known throughout the spheres, and ad- 
mitted everywhere because of his winning 



144 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

smile, and his passport written in glowing 
letters upon his brow, Natty becomes a fre- 
quent actor in scenes and labors that seem 
strange, — yes, stranger than strangest fic- 
tion. To the child lost in pathless and sun- 
less woods, to the benighted and lone wan- 
derer in the swamps and deserts of spirit-land, 
he is sent, a carrier-dove, with hope on his 
scroll, and guidance in his course of flight. 

A loving mother in the brighter spheres 
looks down and sees her own erring, but 
yet her darling, child, dwelling in the cheer- 
less spheres below, wandering in darkness, 
and yet longing for light, for guidance, and 
for help. That mother's yearning to bridge 
the parting gulf, and be herself the guide 
and comforter, is commission enough for 
Natty, and such as he, swift of wing and 
true of sight, to pass the gulf, lure the wan- 
derer round it to where, on solid earth, 
some window lets forth the hospitable ray 
that may guide the wanderer's steps to shel- 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 145 

ter and repose, to where the wretched may 
come up, to where the compassionate may 
come down, to where the lost shall be found, 
to where the dead shall breathe anew the 
breath of life. The philosophy belongs to 
other pages. Our task is only a statement 
of the facts, that bright spirits in the upper 
spheres are invisible and inaudible by the 
dark ones in lower spheres, and that direct 
communion between them is as rare as in- 
tercourse between men and angels. " Yet 
messenger-birds," — mediums in the spirit- 
world, — luring the dark spirit up and into a 
medium in the body, and inviting the bright 
spirit down, can bring the two where, by help 
of earthly affinities which both can feel, they 
may become sensible of each other's pre- 
sence, may commingle their feelings and 
prayers, may sometimes start the scales from 
the dimmed eye of the fallen one, and re- 
veal to him or her the presence and form of 
a glorified mother or father or friend, who 
10 



14 6 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

is, and ever will be, near 'to help undo the 
heavy burdens, break the chains of sin, and 
tread the ascending paths that lead to peace 
and joy. 

Where such work goes on, mortal help is 
often asked, and is perhaps essential. Our 
medium gives only a body, a tool, by which 
the interview may be brought about. And 
the shrinking, trembling, darkened soul 
often needs kind and encouraging words, 
lessons upon Spiritualism, hints of the joys 
that lie immediately before the sorrowful 
listener, — needs the magnetic strength 
Which a firm will and feeling soul, yet in 
the flesh, can infuse into that weak and 
timid one, — before he can bear the words 
or the sight of the revered parent that 
hovers over and near, and is longing to be 
recognized and confided in. Responsible, 
delicate, solemn task ! to take by the hand a 
soul that has just come up from the pit, and 
stands trembling upon its brink ; to hold 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 147 

that soul up, and give it courage and 
strength ; to speak the right word, to feel 
the right emotion, to offer the right prayer ; 
to help it grasp an angel's hand, trust the 
angel's words of. love and cheer, and thus 
take such hold of heavenly things that the 
powers below shall not drag it back to its 
dungeon. This is no part to be heedlessly 
acted or hastily declined. A life more 
varied in its occupations and duties than the 
average, has experienced no other labors that 
equal these in depth and breadth of action 
upon my own mental and moral constitution. 
If aught in life's labors or experiences has 
opened or developed any thing heavenly in 
the inward man, it has been these labors to 
liberate " the spirits in prison." These 
have been real, earnest labors ; and the per- 
sonages, the souls, have been as palpable, as 
truly immortal spirits, as any ever addressed 
when speaking from pulpit or around the 
open grave. The privilege of such high 



148 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

work seems to have come through Natty. 
As guide to the wanderers, it has been his 
duty to lead to the nearest or the best place 
for refreshment and repose. Few, as yet, 
will receive such guests. Firm faith in 
spirit-presence, combined with steady nerve 
and will, are not common enough to be met 
with, excepting at here and there a point; 
and only at such points can the wanderers 
find a resting-place, where the friends from 
higher spheres can make them willing to 
grasp cords of affection let down from above, 
and willing to take the hand that draws up- 
ward. 

Lured on by our child, and coaxed into 
the medium by him, Charlotte, sighing, 
looks sorrowful and heart-broken. Timid 
and distrustful, scarce a word dare she 
utter. Only piecemeal, and slowly, can we 
learn, that, a few years ago, she was a loved 
and happy maiden, dwelling in the suburbs 
of our city, receiving all the blessings that 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 149 

wealth and education, and the love of kind 
parents for their only child, and she most 
fair and loving, could bestow. Many sought 
her hand in marriage. Her own favorite 
among them was not welcome to the pa- 
rents. Trusting where she loved, a secret 
marriage, and a hasty abandonment of her 
father's house, resulted. A few short weeks, 
and how changed the blooming bride ! For 
he whom she had chosen proved a gambler, 
a libertine, a brute ; and, ere a year had 
passed, she learned that the marriage was a 
sham, that her boy was illegitimate, and that 
she was deserted. The parental door was 
closed against her. No road but that of 
prostitution offered so much as shelter and 
bread to her and the babe. Intemperance and 
shame early brought both her and her child 
to the grave. For a few years, her Jemmy 
was the only loved one she could fondle ; 
and he loved his mother alone, because none . 
else had any love for him. In death they 



150 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

were not divided. In the spheres they were 
united, because neither had opportunity to 
exercise love towards any one but the 
other. 

An angel mother and grandmother, happy 
in her own bright home, could yet find in- 
crease of bliss in the magnetic rills of ma-* 
ternal love and Christian charity which her 
own heart could pour forth, and direct along 
such channels as lead down to the dwelling 
of her loved ones, — her Charlotte and 
Jemmy, — and, gathering there, give moist- 
ure that should swell the buried seeds of 
hope and good resolve. When suffering, 
sorrow, and penitence had brought the pro- 
digal to herself; when she might be wish- 
ing, and yet afraid, to rise and go to her mo- 
ther, — then Natty guides her to the spot 
which he calls home, and to the hospitalities 
of those whom he regards as parents. Sad- 
w ness sits upon her every feature ; distrust 
reveals itself in every motion. Our fair, 






SPIRITS IN PRISON. 151 

cheerful medium at our side becomes the 
very embodiment of despair. Kind words 
touch that sore heart ; but she dare not trust : 
so often, so sadly, had she been deceived, so 
often and so fatally had villany come to her 
under the outward garb of friendship, that 
she dare not give way to confidence. An 
hour of well-meant instruction, — pointing 
to the compassion of the common Father, to 
the germs of strength and immortal life 
planted in her own soul, to the readiness of 
men and good angels to take her and the 
little one by the hand, and lead and help 
them on and up to the aspirations and the 
deeds which shall bring peace to the trou- 
bled soul, — an entire hour of such in- 
struction passes by. But, though chained 
by tones of kindness, so unwonted now, 
though loath to leave, she fears to trust. At 
length, we ask that she shall watch us 
through all the acts and motives of a week 
or month, that her spirit-eye shall read us 



152 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

patiently and well, and then repeat her visit. 
Two weeks elapse ; and again she comes, 
timid, fearful, and yet not without hope. 
Aided and encouraged by the ever-cheerful, 
ever-kind messenger-bird, she thinks she 
will try to trust once more. And soon that 
very faith, through medium-optics, — smoked 
glass for spirits' use, — brings the loving 
mother within her range of vision. Far up, 
and amid radiance that almost blinds, hovers 
that yearning, loving heart, and sends down 
its seen and felt, its soothing and strength- 
ening, its encouraging and uplifting, its 
forgiving and its beckoning, emanations. 
Joy, though dumb, now brings the smile 
and the repose, that often rest upon the hu- 
man form when life has fled. But soon she 
feels the arms that clasped her infant form, 
and once again she pillows her throbbing 
brows upon a mother's breast. The wan- 
derer has come home, the famishing one 
finds bread enough and to spare, the lost is 






SPIRITS IN PRISON. 153 

found, the dead lives. In her mother's 
arms we may let her rest, thankful that we 
were called upon to • help her reach that 
saving resting-place, that point where good 
instructions and good influences will again 
surround her, where new development will 
come on, where the stains of the past will 
bleach out, and where the silk and the flax 
may be grown from which to weave the 
bright robes of righteousness. Where she 
is, there goes her Jemmy too ; for their 
love, thus far, has drawn in only one 
direction : the mother has been his only 
magnet. 

Oh that bright change ! — our medium's 
face, upturned to heaven, is radiant with 
thanksgiving and joy. The lips move. 
Another spirit uses her form. That angel- 
mother, from the upper spheres, now pours 
forth her thanks to every helper in heaven 
or on earth. And how fervent her prayer 
to God for each and all of them ! It is good 



154: NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

to be there ; for now we learn what the 
Teacher meant by the joy in heaven over 
a sinner that repenteth. It is a mothers 
joy at finding her long-lost child; it is an 
angel's joy that a wandering soul has found 
the road to a blissful home. ' Not she alone, 
but many join her in the rejoicing over the 
piece which had been lost. 

Little Jemmy, too, rises to the land of 
love. Kind looks, kind words, kind acts, are 
dew and sun, that swell the seeds and start 
the shoots of confidence in his compressed 
and timid soul. Hand in hand with him, 
our little boy goes to the play-grounds of 
spirit-land, draws him gently in to join the 
children in their sports, teaches him that the 
beds of flowers are but carpets for spirit- 
feet, that he may tread and roll himself upon 
the fairest and most fragrant of them all, 
and not a stem will break, not a petal will 
be crushed ; and, from the play-ground, 
they draw near the spacious mansion of the 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 155 

bright-robed teachers and lovers of little 
ones, and peep in upon the happy and well- 
clad children there. Natty would go in ; 
but Jemmy fears there will be no welcome 
for such as he. Natty 's declaration that the 
teachers there are kind to all, can scarce find 
credence with him whose life has been but 
an experience of rebuffs and kicks. More 
than that, his ragged and soiled robes would 
be unfitting to the place. True ; but Natty 
tells him these shall be exchanged for new 
ones. Thus, by degrees, the dwarfed soul 
of the ill-used child of a fallen mother takes 
root in a soil, and feels the breezes which 
shall give its germs development, and nou- 
rish its growth till it shall bear good fruit. 
The report of our messenger says that 
" Jemmy Carlton is a real good boy." 

" If I make my bed in hell, thou art 
there." "I cannot be where God is not." 
Can Christendom believe this fact ? If it do, 
why fear that knowledge of the wanderings 



156 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

and sufferings of the bad in spirit-land must 
mar the happiness of the good above ? What 
God knows, why, how, can that harm good 
spirits ? Reader, please stop, and answer 
how. There may be truth and fact in the 
words of my spirit-brother, that the errors 
and faults of friends whom he has left be- 
hind disturb him less than we suppose. He 
says, " It does not give us quite as much 
pain as some think to know what they are 
doing ; for we have risen to where our views 
of designs and results are more distinct and 
accurate than when in the form. We in the 
spirit-world are made more happy by con- 
versing with our loved ones on earth. We 
praise God for his goodness in allowing us 
to do so." Such, condensed, is the state- 
ment of A. H. P., my brother, who left for 
the spirit-land fifteen years ago, leaving wi- 
dow and children here, and taking with him 
a faith, orthodox according to common no- 
menclature, but a charity and a life which 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 157 

put him among those who fear God and 
work righteousness. 

Who, on the whole, is made most unhappy 
by earth's prisons and dungeons ? Are they 
the Howards, the Dixes, the Peases, who 
take the " gauge and dimensions " of human 
misery there, and thus learn when and where 
and how to bring relief, and who, because 
they see and know and feel, are roused to 
put forth the whole energies of vigorous 
life in meliorating the condition of the 
wretched ? Is it these noble souls, that, on 
the whole, are greatest losers by earth's 
scenes of misery ? No, — oh, no ! Those 
very scenes become their pathways to man- 
sions high up on heaven's hills. And the 
sympathetic searchings of Charlotte's mo- 
ther, and her use of means to lift the fallen 
one from her den of loneliness and want and 
gloom, may have given higher zest to hea- 
venly joys, and raised her nearer to the 



158 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

Father, than could the heartiest songs of 
praise. 

" Oh, gratitude, gratitude ! no language can describe 
it. I teas in darkness and despair ; but now the ex- 
cess of joy is great. It is by your instrumentality that 
I ascend, — that I, once a dark, unhappy child of 
earth, am now wrapped in the blessed influences that 
breathe hope and peace and elevation. 

" Charlotte." 

Such is one of her letters to us. 

Other spirits have come. Walter Gran- 
ville, of New York, Fifth Avenue, a young 
blacksmith, — a doubter of the being of a 
God, doubter of a future life, doubter of 
spirit-existence, doubter of spirit-power to 
speak to mortals, ridiculer of spirit-rappings 

as d humbug, and all this two years after 

death, — yet finds himself in our medium, 
he knows not why or how. Cased "in a 
woman, — the thing he always hated," — 
and locked in there by other agency, the 
fact of spirit-power to speak through me- 






SPIRITS IN PRISON. 159 

dium-lips, the genuineness of spirit-rap- 
pings, the reality of a spiritual existence, are 
here taught him from the facts of his own 
experience. 

And his mother says, " Kind friend of 
earth, oh, help the child! Long have I 
sought to reach him." 

Ashamed to meet that fond mother's gaze, 
his eye drops, and he whispers, "That does 
look like her ; but do not tell her so." He 
wished to slink away ; but his prison was 
too strong, his jailers too faithful. Stay he 
must in the woman walls, till maternal love 
found access to his better nature, and the 
gladdened mother wept for joy. A skilful 
fowler, with snare well laid and strong, 
Natty caught the proud eagle. 

A Spanish beauty of eighteen, gifted with 
noble form, high powers of thought, and 
capacity for deep and good emotions, is de- 
ceived, betrayed, and becomes a hater of her 
race. Misanthropy, deep and bitter, flows 



160 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

out in every word and gesture and look. 
Devilish indeed, haughty, scornful, imperi- 
ous, talented, the conflict in argument was 
no child's play, no momentary brush. In- 
deed, her intellectual blade was too keen 
and too well handled for any common anta- 
gonist to meet. But, even in her, the woman 
was not dead. Love, though buried, was 
not extinguished. Touched by kind and 
sympathetic tones, the ice melted, and from 
beneath it there sprung up hope. Long 
days and nights of doubt and anguish fol- 
lowed ; but the kind words and deeds of 
Abby, whose spirit-eye, glancing down from 
her high sphere into the den of hatred where 
the beauty raved, had seen the gems con- 
cealed in her locked casket, and, with 
Natty's help, had fastened there magnetic 
cords, by which she might be brought to 
me, and thus within the sphere of good 
spirits. Helped by Abby, who saw her ca- 
pacities to become one of Heaven's brightest 



SPIRITS IN PRISON. 161 

angels, she has emerged from her dark es- 
tate, and rises on rapid wing towards the 
realms of light and joy. 

These, and others like and unlike them, 
are the trophies of Spiritualism, — of a 
union of spirit and mortal power, — of co- 
operation between those yet in the flesh and 
those who have passed the grave. Where 
neither could succeed alone, conjointly they 
can save many a soul from death, and hide a 
multitude of sins. 

The fact that such progressing ones make 
themselves our pupils, and range themselves 
together on one side the room near us when 
it is our lot to speak the wisest and kindest 
words we know to such spirits as can be bet- 
ter reached by mortal than immortal lips, — 
this fact, if it do not break us down, must 
• teach us to guard well both lip and thought 
and heart. Much is given, much required. 
Our merry boy is most active and efficient in 
works high and holy as this. 
11 



162 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 



CHAPTER XL 



THE CHILD FLASHES INTO MANHOOD. 

Tims far, we have seen only boyish ways ; 
yet results have often indicated a man, and 
that a whole one. But, boy no longer, he 
seizes my hand, and speaks thus (as before 
published in the " New-England Spiritual- 
ist ") : — 

" ' Dear Father, — Do let me call you thus ; for you 
are indeed my spirit-father. Towards you first did my 
spirit experience the filial feelings. My stay in the body 
was too short for me to learn, while on earth, what 
those feelings were. I never knew an earthly father. 
When first we met at the medium's table, your words ' 
and tones aw r akened in me some feelings that I had 
never known before. Upon describing those feelings 
to spirits of more experience than myself, they told me 
that such were filial feelings, — the feelings which the 






THE CHILD FLASHES INTO MANHOOD. 163 

affectionate child on earth cherishes towards its earthly- 
parents. Towards you first did J experience those feel- 
ings ; so that you are my father more truly than you have 
supposed. I have come to you as the laughing, playful 
child, while, in fact, I am a full-grown spirit. In earth's 
matters, I am but a child : the child's form has become 
me best, and was needful to your recognition of my 
true state, and to my accomplishment of the purpose 
for which I come to earth. As a spirit, I am full-grown ; 
as a child of earth, I am but a child, ignorant of earth's 
experiences and trials. In these, you can be my teach- 
er; while, in spiritual matters, I can help you. Let 
us then, dear father, commune together as mutual 
counsellors and helpers. I need much aid which you 
can give. Strange it may seem, but it is true, that 
those who leave the form in very early life must come 
back, and come into close alliance with your world, be- 
fore they can learn some lessons which are essential to 
highest elevation in the spheres. None of us can lay 
the foundation of a hroad and all-embracing charity, 
unless we learn, by close contact with man on earth, his 
weaknesses, his temptations, his sorrows, and his trials. 
And we cannot come into such contact with you as to 
learn those lessons readily and well, unless your affec- 
tions draw us to you, and unless your interest in us 
shall help to hold us to the places and scenes in which 
you move. Thus, dear father, your interest in me holds 
me where I can better learn true charity than I could 



164 NATTY, A SriRIT. 

without your aid. You are of more service to me than 
I can be to you. By your example and help, and 
through connection with you, I can best learn that cha- 
rity for all without which I cannot ascend with steady 
flight nearer and ever nearer to the common Father of 
all. 

" ' Spirits, in the spheres, do not usually learn their 
need of accurate knowledge of earth-life until they are 
thirty years old or more. Sympathy or childish curi- 
osity may bring the infant spirit often back to its earthly 
friends. But seldom, before the age of thirty, does it 
come back for the purpose of studying thoroughly man's 
condition, and thus learning some lessons of deepest 
wisdom which are essential to the soul's own most beau- 
tiful and bliss-giving development. I now come for such 
a purpose ; I come to get that knowledge of earth-life 
which is essentia] to our highest good, and which cannot 
be learned in the spheres above. In the close connec- 
tion which you permit between myself and you, I am, 
as it were, experiencing earth-life; I am living your 
life, feeling your internal and your external struggles, 
sorrowing somewhat in your sorrows, rejoicing in your 
joys. Measurably, my progress is linked with yours. 
Whatever is for your good helps me. Your harm is 
mine also. And now, dear father, though I come not 
as the mere child, but as the full-grown, manly spirit, 
do continue to love, and thus to help, me. In every 
struggle after clearer light, deeper devotion, broader 



THE CHILD FLASHES INTO MANHOOD. 165 

charity, your success is measurably mine. Father, I 
love to meet you at the morning devotions, and listen 
there while mother reads and while you pray : every 
word and act and feeling which does you good helps me 
also. Tell mother that I love to come and nestle in her 
calm bosom, where all is so quiet and peaceful. Also 
tell, that medium, through whom I first met you, to go 
on in her course of helping us to get access to friends 
in the form. Tell Rachael to bind her temples with 
truth, to be a loving child of God ; and then, when her 
labors in the form are over, I will be one in the band 
ready and waiting to welcome her with gratitude and 
joy to the new life above. And now good-by.' 

" Such, substantially, was the touching address of the 
little child, springing forth, Minerva-like, in the full 
armor of spirit-manhood. He came to do battle side 
by side with me in life's warfare ; he explained our 
relations ; he sought my help, and proffered his to me, — 
I the man, and he the child, in earth-life ; he the man, 
and I the child, in spirit-life, — to move forward hence- 
forth hand in hand in our journey up towards brighter 
mansions in the Father's house. 

" Such a relation and mutual dependence as this, be- 
tween the dweller on earth and the freed rover of the 
spheres above, came upon me as something not com- 
mon in man's knowledge or his imaginings. This, 
indeed, may be deemed the work of imagination; but, 
even as such, it seems to possess vast moral power. 



166 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

The thought — be it fact or be it fancy — the thought 
that one of the departed is trained by our precepts 
and example as essentially as are our earthly children, 
carries with it the inference that tens and scores and 
hundreds and thousands of those witnesses around, who 
1 hold us in full survey,' may have their condition im- 
proved or marred by every act, every word, every 
thought, of each one of us. Such a thought hiiits to 
man the possibility that his sphere of influence may be 
wide as his imagination can wing her flight, — may be 
high as heaven, dee]) as hell ; and, if this be possible, 
thanks are due to any being or any faculty, be it spirit 
or be it imagination, which tends to awaken us to any 
realization of our vast possible duties to the whole race 
of man. There is deeper meaning hi these spirit-utter- 
ances than the world sees ; there is more meaning in 
the mother's prattle with her child than the world sees. 
The prattle is meant for the child ; and the child feels 
its power and sees its beauty. Spiritualism, in its 
higher and purer forms, is meant for the childlike in 
heart : to such tins gospel is preached. These feel its 
power and see its beauty. It opens deep springs of 
feeling, which send up the waters of faith and gladness ; 
and it gives \isions bright and real as that which he of 
Patmos saw when in the spirit on the Lord's day.. 

" There seems to be little wisdom in closing our eyes 
against light, in whatever way the Lord may please to 
send it. If babes and sucklings can utter words of 






THE CHILD FLASHES INTO MANHOOD. 167 

highest wisdom, he does wisely who can overlook the 
humbleness of their source, and think only of their 
intrinsic worth." 

On the last evening of ( the year, our 
friend came, in the fulness of his angel- 
heart, and communed with us. Among 
many other things, he said, " Natty, as a 
child, has a work to do ; Natty, as a man, 
has a work to do. As a child, for of such, 
Jesus says, is the kingdom of heaven. 
Many a time have I wished to come and 
speak as a man. But Natty has been taught, 
that, m whatever form he could be most use- 
ful, in that he should be willing to come." 

There being a pause, I, a little in advance, 
wished him " a happy New Year," with the 
prayer that it might be one of greater use- 
fulness with both him and me than any one 
in the past. 

" Oh," said he, — " oh, could you hear 
how the accompanying spirits take up that 
wish, and echo and re-echo it upon their 



168 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

harps, — oh, how beautifully ! Shall I tell 
you of a figure we have here? The angels 
have made a harp. The strings are com- 
posed of persons whom you have aided to 
speak to the world. The one who speaks 
the loudest is the long string ; the next 
loudest speaker is the second string ; and so 
on.^ The delicate ones are equally neces- 
sary : they are the female mediums. Now 
a bright spirit sweeps the strings ; and oh, 
what music ! Would that I could describe 
it to you ! But that is impossible. It goes 
to the heart. Now she touches again, and 
the music overwhelms me. So it is — it is 
a reality. You (father and mother are both 
one), — you have been privileged to construct 
a harp for the highest spirits to touch, and 
make music that gladdens the highest angel. 
You have felt sometimes that there were dis- 
cordant notes, — thought that this and that 
effort has been wasted ; but, could you see 
as we see, you would know that discord is 



THE CHILD FLASHES INTO MANHOOD. 169 

as necessary as accord. All have their 
place and their use. Oh, never forget this 
harp ! " 

No, Natty, those who are pleased that 
you call them parents are not likely to for- 
get the deep impressions of your vivid but 
simple description of the harp on which spi- 
rits played for us at the going out of the 
year. There is compensation in your cheer- 
ing words for much more of toil than has 
come to us yet. There is also encourage- 
ment and strength in the thought that labors 
to convince man that angels can visit him 
awaken strains of thanks and joy upon an- 
gel-harps. We shall not forget ; but we 
will labor and pray that our kindred in the 
flesh, and all other mortals, may have the 
faith and feelings which shall throw wide 
their doors for the free admission of angel- 
hosts, and that the melodies of harps on 
high may be heard in all earthly dwellings. 

And now, my little friend, my pupil in 



170 NATTY, A SPIRIT. 

earth's matters, my teacher in spiritual 
things, borrowing wings from the press, you 
go forth, a strange bird in man's fields and 
meadows and forests. The sportsman will 
bag you, if he can, whatever your note or 
your plumage j but some lovers of Nature 
may find melody in your song, and beauty in 
your colors. Go forth to bless others as 
you have blessed us ; go forth to give plea- 
sure, and to lure man heavenward ; go as an 
angel of glad-heariedness and of smiling 
piety ; go in the spirit and power of the 
universal Father ; and may his blessings be 
upon you ! 

Again we quote the words of Spirit 
Abby : — 

" Tarry with us, bright messenger-bird ! 
Thy brow was never touched by the finger 
of Care. There is much wisdom in thee. 
Thy voyage over the ocean of life was but 
a span. Thou partedst from the friends of 
earth to cheer them unseen. Come, touch 



THE CHILD FLASHES INTO MANHOOD. 171 

thy sweet harp to cheer the lone traveller. 
Many have been touched by thy magic 
wand. Much good hast thou done, little 
fairy-bird! Float, float on thy way." 



APPENDIX. 



Mr. William W. Young, of Chelsea, — a brother of 
Oliver, and cousin of Natty, — has just sent to Dover, 
N.H., and obtained a copy of records there. We now 
learn that Natty was born Sept. 1, 1815 ; but the time 
of his death, and consequently his days or weeks of life, 
are not furnished us. His mother passed to the spirit- 
land in 1830, and his father about two years ago. One 
brother and two sisters are now living in New Hamp- 
shire ; while two brothers and one sister have followed 
him to the home of spirits. His uncle and aunt at 
Chelsea state that the mother had a light and fair 
complexion, and golden-colored hair; also that her 
children, and especially her son Jefferson, when a boy, 
had thick golden hair, that curled all over the head. 
Such facts are first learned by us now, after the picture 
was painted, and the body of this book written. 

And how near has the sprightly boy kept to the facts ? 
In 1852, Oliver says to him, " How old were you when 
you died ? " Ans. " Five days." — " How long since ? " 
Ans. "Thirty-five years." In June, 1855, he delibe- 



17-i APPENDIX. 

rately told me that it was thirty-nine years since he 
was born. It was, in fact, a few months more than 
thirty-nine, you will see, yet not quite forty. 

His mother's name, which she wrote through the 
medium when I knew not whether she was living or 
dead, and when no one present knew, proves to be 
Elizabeth, as she then gave it. Nothing had ever been 
known by me, or by the painter, or by either of the 
mediums, as to the complexion and hair of the mother 
or of her children ; yet, after the picture is finished, we 
find our Natty is like his family in these particulars. 
Had we copied from Oliver, whom we supposed to be 
brother, we should have given much darker hair and 
complexion, if I remember correctly. 

Let me repeat, that neither the artist, nor any of the 
mediums, nor myself, had ever heard of or seen any one 
of Natty's relatives, excepting at the single meeting 
which I had with Oliver more than three years ago. 
I supposed him a brother until our work was done; 
and he is darker, much, than Natty. How happens it 
that our five or six mediums and our artist have seen 
complexion and hah- so well suited to the child that 
was born and buried in Dover, N.H., forty years ago, 
and of whom they had never heard till he came per- 
sonally and was seen ? 

A little incident of recent occurrence is worth record- 
ing. Shortly after my hunt for the Youngs in Chelsea, 
which was late in January, 1856, Mr. William W. 
Young, for the first time, entered Mr. Fenton's studio. 
There was no one in the room : he took a seat by the 
stove ; and soon a lady entered. They were strangers, 



APPENDIX. 175 

and did not speak. After a few minutes, Natty said to 
the lady (Mrs. Newton), "That is my cousin; and I 
want you to talk to him." Though reluctant to address 
a stranger under the circumstances, Natty u#ged so 
earnestly that she ventured to say, " Natty tells me 
that your name is Young, and that you are, his cousin." 
This salutation, we trust, put no obstacle in the gen- 
tleman's progress towards faith that departed ones can 
come and talk with men. 

Our book is neither argumentative nor demonstra- 
tive ; and we have taken but little pains to give promi- 
nence to such facts as might do most towards proving the 
agency of spirits. Some apparent discrepancies may 
show on the surface ; and at many points the reader will 
start questions which are not answered in these pages. 
The origin and history of the picture were the parts we 
wished to make public, and the life of Natty was but 
an incident to the First Part. Our purpose is accom- 
plished if we have given a distinct idea as to who and 
what he is, even though we leave much unsaid which 
the curious might be glad to learn. 

Koxbury, Feb. 12, 1856. 



